Who is Jimmy Boone?

Hollywood bartender Jimmy Boone is the hero of Richard Lange's first novel, This Wicked World (New York: Little, Brown & Co, 2009; 401 pp., $23.99). Cast in that role, Jimmy Boone seems a poor fit. He ain't no Sam Spade; he don't crack wise with a gat in his puss. Mike Hammer could beat the crap out of Jimmy Boone and never bust a sweat. Philip Marlowe would notice that Jimmy Boone isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Worse: Jimmy ain't got no class! He dresses like a bum and drinks like a sissy (Scotch, orange juice, sweet vermouth and cherry brandy? Blick!). Worst of all: Jimmy walks mean streets with a toothless, wormy pit bull named Faggot.

Jimmy Boone's parole officer thinks Jimmy Boone is a loser. Jimmy Boone thinks Jimmy Boone is a shit magnet. Loretta the dog-rescue lady thinks Jimmy Boone has a good heart. Jimmy's friend Amy doesn't know what to think of Jimmy Boone. By the time they finish This Wicked World, readers may not know what to think of Jimmy Boone either.

This writer thinks Jimmy Boone is a guy who got tired of kicking himself around and decided to let novelist Richard Lange do the kicking for a while. If that sounds kind of wacky, it isn't, really. Jimmy's life is arguably better under Lange's strenuous management.

Before Richard Lange made Jimmy Boone into a crime-fiction hero, Jimmy did petty burglaries, served four years in the Marines, beat an innocent man near to death, spent four years in stir and ruined his buddy Carl's hifalutin, rent-a-goon bodyguard business. Since Richard Lange made Jimmy Boone into a crime-fiction hero, Jimmy does somewhat better: Jimmy solves a murder, rescues an abused dog, exterminates a gang of stone-cold villains, saves two friends from being thrown into the street, and lays a cool roll of hot dough on the murdered man's widow and child.

The downside is that, while he's doing those good deeds, Jimmy Boone gets tied up, beat up, cut up, kicked, stomped, clubbed, punched, pistol-whipped, shot at, and nearly drowned. Pieces of Jimmy get ripped away and eaten by savage dogs. As if all that weren't enough, friend Amy pisses Jimmy off and leaves Los Angeles for a new life in Montana.

Nasty bitch! They'll do it every time.

Even so, tough guys like Spade and Hammer and Marlowe shouldn't laugh at Jimmy Boone. Bartender Jimmy does have one asset that may yet land him in the Hall of Hard-Boiled Fame with the best of the professional dicks: Novelist Richard Lange, who created Jimmy, writes prose that is lean and mean. From the Prologue:

Los Angeles was not its haughty self in the rain. It was like a wet cat: humiliated, confused. People stepped gingerly on suddenly slippery sidewalks, looking like they'd been lied to. The gutters, clogged with garbage, overflowed, and water puddled in busy intersections.

Oscar waited for the bus with a mumbling loco and a couple of old ladies who shared an umbrella. The rain came down harder, the drops slamming into the pavement like suicides. Oscar zipped his jacket and pulled the hood over his head.

Beyond generous use of his ability to create a mood, a scene, a character, Mr. Lange put a bit of thought into This Wicked World. The book isn't just so much mindless violence. There is stuff here to ponder and to argue about.

For cops and public servants and do-gooders of every stripe: "Most of the people you're dealing with on the street don't want your help. They want to be free to beat and be beaten, to rob and be robbed, to kill and be killed."

Describing the arch-villain, Taggert: "He stares at death in the mirror every morning and carries it around inside him every day, and that gives him all the power in the world. Look into his eyes the next time you get close. The end of everything is in there. You can't reason with a man like that. You can only kill him or follow him."

Put This Wicked World under a magnifying glass, you spot a few mistakes. For example, Lange doesn't seem as familiar with Marine Corps training and the use of firearms as he needs to be and if he is, it doesn't show here: veteran grunts like Jimmy and Carl won't walk into a shootout with weapons obtained from god-knows-who that they haven't zeroed or even bothered to test. There are a couple of places, too, where characters' actions in response to motives detailed seem more than a bit outré.

This writer knows that a competent editor will save an author from boners such as those (Shame on you, Little, Brown!). Readers who don't customarily pick such nits probably won't notice the mistakes because they'll be too busy having fun with Lange's story.

Thus our verdict is that This Wicked World is rock-em, sock-em, arm-breaking, armchair adventure. The message is about doing the right thing, about how much trouble the effort brings us, about what it's worth to us as human beings. Moral ambiguity is a leitmotif in This Wicked World. Good and Evil are a hard pair to separate throughout. Wrong things (even armed robbery and murder) can look like right things if they're done in a just cause by people who for whatever reason try too hard to do good.

So it is with Jimmy Boone. Driven by his need to accomplish just one good thing, Jimmy leads a small crew of his friends neck-deep into the muck of thuggery.

When the blood all dries and the dust all settles, Jimmy Boone thinks he's about through with Los Angeles. The Cyanide Hole suspects, however, that Los Angeles is not through with Jimmy Boone. Fans of crime fiction, having read This Wicked World, will hope that Richard Lange finds new adventures for Jimmy (and a better editor) soon.

Sinking the S.S. Birth Certificate

Political journalism lately bubbles with talk of "the birthers." "The birthers," as most of the world already knows, are those who insist that President Obama was not born in the United States, that he is a natural-born citizen of a foreign country and is, therefore, constitutionally barred from serving as president of the United States. Birthers imply that the governor and the government of the State of Hawaii are complicit in the alleged plot because "somebody" just had to fake Mr. O's fake birth certificate. "And Hey!" they whine: "If Obama really was born in the United States, why doesn't he just show us his long-form birth certificate and put all of this to rest?"

Some think the birthers' demand sounds reasonable. What they fail to grasp is that if Obama were to show his long-form birth certificate as requested, the birthers would immediately call that document's authenticity into question on the same grounds (i.e.: No grounds at all.) that they question the authenticity of the electronic "short form" that has already been published by the State of Hawaii. Thus, if the long-form document were released, rumors of a forgery would not be quelled but would instead be renewed and revitalized.

Democratic partisans by and large accuse the birthers of racism. They insist that if Obama were a white guy or if his name sounded a little less Arabic, questions about the president's place of birth would never have arisen. The partisans forget that it was Hillary Clinton's 2008 primary campaign that originally questioned the whereabouts of Mr. Obama's birth. So it is that accusations of racism hurled at the birthers are likely misapplied. Instead, recent history suggests that -- whatever the motives of the birthers themselves -- those who pay the likes of Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh to keep the pot boiling are rich, political operatives.

Consider: the GOP lost 2008 by an enormous margin. They lost so badly that, as many already know, the life of the GOP is now in the balance. Republicans are no better than a poisonous minority in the House and probably cannot sustain a filibuster in the Senate. The GOP at this point is driven by a need to hang onto their moneyed contributors (in politics, no power = no money). Toward that end they will do whatever they can, and their options are few.

One option they do have is to fight a rearguard action by diminishing the size of Obama's coattails. They can undermine his authority, diminish his power to lead and hobble his legislative agenda by questioning his right to govern and spreading rumors that he has no such right in fact, that his presidency is illegal, as many birthers insist is the case. That the charges are baseless makes no difference: "The squeaking wheel gets the grease," as the saying goes, and in this particular case public attention is all the grease that matters.

The tactic is not new by any means. We saw it in play after Bill Clinton (in 1992) won a minority victory over Pres. George H.W. Bush and H. Ross Perot. On election night, Sen. Bob Dole was asked to comment on the size of the new president's mandate. Dole responded that as far as he was concerned, Bill Clinton HAD no mandate. In the months that followed, the GOP did their best to make it so.

• Rumors about Whitewater, already in evidence, got louder after the election than they were during the campaign (Curious, don't you think?) The government, under the direction of a meticulously vicious Republican special prosecutor, eventually spent $38 million on the Whitewater investigation and found precisely nothing. But they spread the investigation out across eight years (helped along by Bill's greasy, stupid fling with Monica Lewinski).
  
  
• The Clintons hadn't been long in Washington before their friend and advisor Vincent Foster killed himself. A team of partisan pundits immediately concocted the story that Foster was murdered, that Bill and Hillary were responsible for the crime, and that an investigation would reveal the facts. The pundits were glad to conduct the investigation themselves, in banner headlines. The smear dragged on for many months before it all came to nothing. I don't believe any of those responsible ever confessed to being wrong.
  
  
• Troopergate was another of Bill Clinton's alleged crimes. Again, the rumors grew louder after the election than they were during the campaign. (Also curious, don't you think?) I read the confession of the twisted liar who invented the story and wrote a book about it, the whole thing -- including the testimony of the Arkansas state troopers allegedly involved -- paid for by rabidly conservative, Republican publisher Richard Mellon Scaife.
  
  
• Bill's baby brother was another alleged issue. A drunken coke snorter and womanizer, Roger Clinton was the Billy Carter of the nineties. Of course he wasn't the president, but GOP publicists did their level best to make it seem as if he were.
  
  
• Then there was the Mena, Ark., coke-smuggling operation that supposedly went on during Bill's tenure as governor of Arkansas. It was claimed at the time that the CIA was running those dope flights and that then Gov. Clinton was boss of the operation. I was hounded out of a chat room when I pointed out that the CIA is an organ of the UNITED STATES government and an operation of that sort -- and of such brazen notoriety -- could not have gone forward without the knowledge and complicity of Pres. George H.W. Bush and/or key members of his administration. Nobody in that particular chat room had any use for facts.

Considering all of that, one arrives at the conclusion that the fable of the Obama birth certificate is only one of several other fables that will doubtless gain currency and amplitude as this presidency goes forward and Mr. O's popularity diminishes further. Such things are paid for with money from outfits like The Weekly Standard (Richard Mellon Scaife), The National Review (the Buckley oil fortune) and other radical right sources. Democrats have their own propagandists (the Kennedy fortune paid for George magazine, for example).

Nobody in journalism or in politics (Journalism IS politics -- or didn't you realize that? Journalism as we know it has no other purpose.) takes any of that crap seriously regardless of what they say in public. Those who man the oars that propel these scandals keep their life jackets handy because boats like the S.S. Birth Certificate, being made of substandard material, are prone to sudden and catastrophic leakage.

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John Oliver Takes Down Tim Geithner

Those who haven't seen John Oliver take down Tim Geithner had better click the link and watch the video. It may just be the funniest thing you've ever seen. Oliver's shtick was never more savage.

The best career move Tim Geithner can make, now that John Oliver is through with him, would be to either kill himself or flee the country. No! Wait! The best career move Geithner could make at this point is to flee the country and then kill himself.

No matter what he does with the rest of his life, Tim Geithner will never get back from where John Oliver has put him.

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Much Stranger than Fiction

John Gorenfeld's Bad Moon Rising: How Reverend Moon
Created The Washington Times, Seduced the Religious Right,
and Built an American Kingdom
a review

Among those who will read this item, there are probably a few who already believe that followers of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon (aka “Moonies”) are crazier than a trainload of shit-house rats. My hat’s off to those who think so, for they are correct.

Most readers probably won’t believe such an extreme statement. If you are one of them I will not argue but urge you instead to point your browser at Messages from the Spirit World. At the center of the image is a link that reveals “Messages from God and former U.S. Presidents to the United Nations.” Click on the link, and read those messages.

By the time you return from that bizarre adventure, the Moonies themselves will have convinced you (as they convinced me) that they are indeed crazier than a trainload of shit-house rats. And if, like me, your curiosity drives you to learn more about Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church, you may be of a mind to read author John Gorenfeld’s book, Bad Moon Rising (PoliPoint Press: Sausalito, CA; 2008; $24.95).

Unlike this critic, John Gorenfeld avoids extreme statements because he is a good journalist. Gorenfeld evidently gives credence to the idea that in making a joke of someone, we discount the possibility that he, she, or they might actually be dangerous. And as a Moonologist of several years’ experience, Gorenfeld also seems to understand and appreciate that while members of Moon’s Unification Church may actually be insane, their collective insanity must be methodically directed because it works toward a coherent purpose.

The Rev. Moon’s story is one of the strangest this writer has encountered. Born Yong-Myung Moon in 1920, the penniless son of North Korean peasants, he became Sun Myung Moon only after he experienced an epiphany in 1935. During Easter, Moon went up a hill to pray. God appeared and told him: “You are the son I have been seeking, the one who can begin my eternal history.”

Moon then went to Japan, where he trained as an electrical engineer. His training finished, he went back to Korea. There he began his ministry but was rejected by his congregation. He was also arrested and imprisoned by authorities in North Korea. Escaped from what amounted to slavery, Moon fled to South Korea. There he started a church that combined Moon’s own, weird take on Christian theology with a virulent anti-communism.

While Moon serviced and grew his flocks, the Republic of Korea created its own Central Intelligence Agency. The ROK CIA then created the Unification Church from whole cloth. Secret agencies being what they are, details of the action are sketchy where they’re not entirely lacking. Somehow the Rev. Moon ended up as leader of the ROK CIA’s new church, and he brought his flock of some few thousands with him. Moon’s Unification Church proved popular in Japan and over the years gained a toehold in the United States and in other countries, as well.

By the middle Sixties, Moon was in America and evangelizing furiously. Here in the States, the message of the Unification Church proved most appealing to confused and rebellious youth, to dropouts who were alienated even from the counterculture, to young spiritual cripples of most every stripe.

Survivors of the crazy, drug-laced street scene of the Sixties and Seventies will recall how it was: after the Manson killings and the Jonestown massacre, parents nationally were terrified of anything that smacked of “cultism.” Moonies -- who did weird things such as travel in flocks and sell flowers on the street -- were one group suspected of “cultism.” They were believed to have been hypnotized or brainwashed -- call it 'spiritually hijacked' if you will. Frantic parents sometimes kidnapped their own children and dragged them home, away from Moonie influence, where the kids were confined for weeks or months under close supervision by professional (and sometimes brutal) 'deprogrammers'.

While Moonie flocks raised money selling flowers, Rev. Moon schmoozed Washington bigwigs. Through well connected Korean friends, Moon gained the endorsement of former President Eisenhower. Using Ike's good name as a springboard, Moon moved boldly to widen his circle of influential friends. He was one of the very few in Washington who openly stood by Tricky Dick Nixon in the depths of the Watergate scandal. Media reported Moon and Nixon praying together in the Oval Office. Moonie faithful marched in support of Nixon outside the beleaguered White House.

Through the turbulent Seventies, Moon and his people persevered despite accusations of “cultism” that involved him and his church in congressional investigations. At different times, Moon made himself useful dispensing money and favors to people such as Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Jesse Helms, Jack Kemp, William Bennett, Ralph Reed, Jerry Falwell, Karl Rove, organizations such as Empower America, The Heritage Foundation, and a host of other big-league players in the rabidly reactionary, right-wing power grab that America likes to call “Christian conservatism.”

Savoring the worth of propaganda for such purposes, Moon bought The Washington Times newspaper (then defunct) in 1982 and has since then spent billions to get the paper up and keep it afloat. Moonism hit a speed bump in 1984, when former Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS) had the Reverend jugged for tax evasion. During the nineteen months Moon spent in prison, his public relations campaign went forward without missing a beat. Moon and his church continued in service to the power elite of America’s radical right. Moon’s promo operation went global in Y2K, when the Reverend snapped up the United Press International newswire at a fire-sale price.

Schmoozing paid dividends: Highly placed Moon journalists began to achieve influential positions in government. Former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow (now deceased) spent three years as opinion-page editor at The Washington Times before he went to work for George W. Bush. Moonie church member Josette Sheeran, former managing editor of The Washington Times, in 1997 quit her Moonie job and went to work for Bill Bennett’s “Empower America” think tank. In 2001, President Bush named Ms. Sheeran “undersecretary of state for economic, business and cultural affairs.” In 2006 (with the support of U.N. Ambassador John Bolton) Sheeran vacated her undersecretary of state appointment to head up the U.N. World Food Program. And it surely was no coincidence that the Unification Church and its many dozens of “non-profit” front groups stood in line with their hands out when the Bush administration handed out taxpayer dollars to 'faith-based initiatives'.

Now some 89 years old, Moon stands at the head of a church that spans the globe. In the United States alone, Moonies interact with the public through more than 1,500 assorted front groups and businesses -- most of them innocuously named. Globally, Moon’s church is active in 40 nations through more than 2,100 affiliated groups. Steven Alan Hassan’s Freedom of Mind Center attempts to keep tabs on Moon operations and has posted what they hope is a complete list of Moon Church affiliates on the World Wide Web. Reading that list, it is likely that some of those who donate to charitable organizations and political or religious causes will learn that they’ve been donating money to one or another aspect of the Unification Church.

All of that came to a climax (if NOT to a blessed end) on a March evening at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., in 2004. Then and there, members of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives gathered for a coronation ceremony at which they crowned the Rev. Sun Myung Moon 'King of Peace'. So far from his humble origin as a North Korean clodhopper, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon today calls himself “The King of Peace, the Lord of the Fourth Israel, the Messiah,” and he has the endorsement of the United States Congress to prove his claim.

Don’t be surprised if you never knew about Moon’s congressional coronation. Senators and representatives involved in the travesty rushed to cover it up as soon as they did it, and mainstream media helped them do so. Everyone involved was ashamed of themselves, you see, because while Moon pretends to be a rabidly patriotic American, his teachings contradict his pretense: Moon teaches that he is more powerful than God; that Jesus was a failure; that Satan loves democracy; that dictatorial rule is best. He claims endorsements from thirty-seven former U.S. presidents (all of them dead) that were channeled to him from the spirit world through a medium (also dead). Moon claims to communicate with God, with Jesus, with Mohammed, Confucius, and the Buddha. Moon also claims to have freed Adolf Hitler from Hell (Toward what end remains unclear. Maybe the good Reverend will have Hitler's ghost appointed chairman of the Republican National Committee. Best evidence suggests he may already have done so.), and much, much more.

Considering what the Rev. Sun Myung Moon teaches and professes to believe, an American patriot has to shudder. What can it mean for America that people who either believe in or carry water for a nutball such as Moon have schmoozed and bought their way into the Oval Office, into the US diplomatic corps, and into other positions of importance in our federal government?

Thus Gorenfeld’s gift to us is not just the story of Moon and his church but the facts of which that story is built. While this review gives only the barest few, Bad Moon Rising is packed with scary and outrageous details. Gorenfeld did years of legwork and compiled a mountain of documented information, which he deploys with skill. His narration is dispassionate but laced with a dry wit. Reading Gorenfeld‘s book, I found myself chuckling wryly when I wasn’t slack-jawed with astonishment.

The Cyanide Hole recommends that you support great journalism, strike a blow for sanity in government and amuse yourself in the process. Buy and read Bad Moon Rising. Then go and vote accordingly.

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George Washington Matsell, Part Two

This story was first published in TimeLines (Vol. IV, No. 5; September 1998), the voice of the Linn County Historical Society. It is reprinted here with permission from The History Center of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

History by Bob Drahozal; Copy Edit by Jimmy Montague

George W. Matsell: The Big Chief in The Big Apple

Indians of Eastern Iowa called George Washington Matsell “The Big Chief.” The handle was entirely appropriate: Matsell was not only the first police chief of New York City, but he weighed something near 350 pounds.

Chief Matsell was a native of New York City who came to the Wapsipinicon River country as one of Linn County’s early pioneers. He arrived with a fortune rumored to be in excess of $2 million. He spent lavishly on 3,300 acres of land and a 25-room mansion full of luxuries and curios in which he lived for only three months of each year. He spent the rest of his time pursuing a career in New York City politics. When he was in Iowa, he entertained troops of expensive friends with troupes of expensive actors and carloads of expensive food and beverages. He even published his own newspaper. He did all of that within plain sight of his neighbors, pioneer families to whom money was “as scarce as hens’ teeth,” who lived in unchinked log cabins and with whom he had next to nothing to do. Thus if he made a big splash among them, it wasn’t because he fell in the Wapsi River. If he left a deep impression on them and upon the region, it wasn’t because he was overweight.

None of that will be news to those who read “Remembering the Big Chief” in our last edition. This time, having already told of Matsell’s marvelous Wapsi River manor and the marvels housed therein, we’re going to take a closer look at George Matsell’s life in New York City. In focusing on that aspect of the man, we hope to learn a bit more about him. Perhaps what we learn will go some way toward explaining the Big Chief’s presence in Iowa and his conduct while in residence here.

The Big Chief’s father, George Matsell, emigrated from England to New York City in 1784. The elder Matsell then returned to England, married Elizabeth Constable and brought his bride back to New York, where he opened a tailor shop on Broadway.

Chief Matsell always insisted he was born on Oct. 25, 1806.¹ A 1929 article in the New York Herald Tribune said he was born in 1811.² When Chief Matsell died in 1877, his New York Times obituary stated that he was born in 1807.³ Because there is no substantive reason to disbelieve the Chief in favor of either newspaper’s account, it seems likely that both journals were mistaken.

Another controversy regarding Chief Matsell’s birth arose as part of a political brawl in 1854-55. At that time Matsell’s political enemies — selfstyled “Native Americans” of the Know Nothing Party⁴ — alleged that he was actually born in England, from whence he emigrated with his parents to New York at the age of 5 or 6. Had that been true, it would have meant that Matsell was ineligible to hold the office of police commissioner for the city of New York.⁵ In the end, however, none of it was shown to be of substance.

Young George received some public school training. Then, at the age of 9, he was placed on his uncle’s farm in New Jersey. That life did not suit him. He left at the age of 11, shipped as a ’prentice seaman on the brig Catherine Rodgers, bound for Mobile, Ala. Fifteen days out, Catherine Rodgers was wrecked. Matsell, one of the few to be rescued, subsequently spent several months wandering about the Florida reefs in the company of men who pillaged shipwrecks for a living. He then worked at a saltyard in Nassau, New Providence, for a short time before moving on to Mobile. There he spent some time with the Creek Indians. After that experience he suddenly appeared in New York City, surprising his friends, who had presumed him dead. A few days later, however, he boarded a ship bound for South Carolina. Upon his return from that voyage, he signed on the London Trader. She was a fast Briton in China traffic, a clipper bound for the Orient. Harsh discipline on that voyage evidently cured Matsell’s yen for nautical adventure, for he afterward placed with Messrs. Barrett & Tileston, silk dyers and printers on Staten Island, carving pattern blocks and ideating new designs.⁶

Eight years later, on April 6, 1834, he married Ellen Mariam Barrett. She was the daughter of the senior partner at Barrett & Tileston and was said to be a descendant of George M. Barrett, one of the Minutemen who shot it out with British Redcoats at the Battle of Lexington.⁷

Later that year, young Matsell opened a bookstore on Chatham Street in New York City. His store’s claim to fame lay in the peculiar sort of books he stocked. Works by Thomas Paine, Robert Dale Owen, Fanny Wright and other free thinkers were always found in Matsell’s store. The place became a rendezvous for avant-garde philosophers and windmill tilters.⁸

Matsell joined a political club, the Locofoco⁹ faction of the Democratic party, and thereby gained enough influence to be appointed to the New York Custom House in 1837. There he set up a surveillance system to fight the dishonesty of dock workers, custom agents and businessmen.

In 1840, Matsell was appointed police magistrate at the Tombs Police Court.¹⁰ Newspaper accounts claim he exhibited a sense of fair play and of humor and won recognition as a negotiator while dispensing justice. The papers said he was also a bit of a vigilante, who didn’t wait for criminals to be brought before him. He and three other magistrates led a crew of ‘indefatigables’ through the streets to ferret out crooks and arrest them. Most of the criminals they caught seemed to be drunks, gamblers and other patrons of “dens of infamy,” with which the city was rife. Thugs and burglars also fell to Matsell and his law dogs.¹¹

In 1845, New York City organized a Municipal Police Department of some 900 men to take the place of its old, ineffective, village-watchman system.¹² New York’s was the first fulltime police force organized in the United States. New York mayor William F. Havemeyer nominated Police Justice Taylor, a Whig, as superintendent of this new force. The Common Council, strongly Democratic, rejected his choice. Havemeyer then nominated Matsell, a Democrat, who was confirmed immediately.¹³

Matsell, by the way, remained a Democrat all his life. As a result he numbered many Democrats among his friends, including Presidents Martin Van Buren and Franklin Pierce, several New York mayors and many others in New York political circles.¹⁴ He and Theodore Roosevelt’s father operated excursion boats out of New York City.¹⁵ However, he also included among his friends such staunch Whigs as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.¹⁶

Matsell put his police force into uniforms in the teeth of stiff opposition from his officers, using strong incentives such as summary dismissal. Soon his uniforms, combined with paramilitary training and other changes he wrought, led his loudest opponents to become his loudest supporters.¹⁷

One of his first actions as Police Chief was to place banks, hotels, theaters, ferries, depots and other public places under police surveillance.¹⁸ During the 13 years of his chieftainship, Matsell dealt successfully all manner of disturbances, including the 1849 Astor Place Theater riot in the course of which more than 20 New Yorkers were killed. Through it all, Matsell worked at improving the discipline and efficiency of his force.¹⁹

In 1857 the New York State Legislature passed the Metropolitan Police Act, which set up a commission to make police appointments. Prior to that time, police appointments were the prerogative of the Boards of Aldermen. Mayor Fernando Wood and Chief Matsell disagreed with the Act and continued to run the police department as it had been. An incident arose when Mayor Wood defied a governor’s appointment of the New York City Street Commissioner. A warrant for Mayor Wood's arrest was issued.

Chief Matsell remained loyal to the mayor. He and 800 policemen resisted attempts to arrest the mayor. An armed confrontation between Matsell’s police and the state-appointed Municipal Police ensued. Many of the latter were severely wounded, some fatally. The military intervened, and the courts finally dislodged Matsell and Mayor Wood. Matsell was tried and dismissed from the force. The state-appointed Metropolitan Police thereafter patrolled New York City until 1870, when authority was restored to local officials.²⁰

Those who sought Matsell’s dismissal came to regret it. For when the infamous New York Draft Riots broke out in 1863, both the state-appointed police and federal troops failed to contain the mob. With corpses laying thick in the streets and Police Superintendent John Kennedy beaten senseless by rioters, it was Matsell to whom city authorities turned. A special train was dispatched to bring the Big Chief back from his Iowa exile so he could lead the forces of law and order to suppress the violence.²¹

Chief Matsell was also a journalist, an author and editor. Under the name of G. W. Matsell & Co., the Chief published and edited the National Police Gazette from 1858 to 1876. He also wrote a book, Vocabulum; or The Rogues’ Lexicon, which remains popular today with historical novelists and mystery writers who seek to add authentic dialog to stories of 19thcentury America. Matsell’s Vocabulum is “a comprehensive dictionary of slang expressions used by gamblers, billiard players, stock brokers and pugilists compiled from the most authentic sources.” The Chief’s book provides not only definitions but many samples of proper slang usage (e.g.: “Dakma the bloke and cloy his cole” translates to “Silence the man and steal his money” — an interpretation that is decidedly not selfevident). Matsell also wrote an appendix to Thomas L. Harris’ sermon: Juvenile Depravity and Crime in Our City.²² The appendix is Matsell’s report on destitution and crime among children in New York. A third Matsell book, Rules and regulations for police of the city of New York, was written in 1846 and updated three times in the next seven years.²³

Chief Matsell was at one time thought to be worth about $2 million. It was said that he supported the NYPD out of his own pocket during its war with the New York State Legislature in 1857.²⁴ In fact, Matsell’s personal worth was then and is now uncertain. When he died, his estate was valued at about $160,000, including real estate in New York City and “Western lands.”²⁵

Although the powerful and corrupt Tammany Hall political machine, led by the infamous W. M. “Boss” Tweed, controlled New York City during this time, Chief Matsell is reported to have been remarkably ‘clean’. He opposed the machine’s corruption and was a member of the Committee of Seventy that aided in the conviction of Tweed and his gang.²⁶

In 1873 William Havemeyer was re-elected mayor. He reappointed Matsell Superintendent of Police. Eventually he was appointed Police Commissioner and subsequently elected President of the Board of Commissioners.²⁷ His reputation, however, was subject to a relentless attack by The New York Times.

In July, 1875, the new mayor, William Wickham, came under fire in regard to the Commissioners who were on his governing board. Several were pressured into resigning.²⁸ Charges were made by a Mr. David Twohey to the mayor, stating that George Matsell was willfully and habitually negligent of his duties, was partial and brutal in his conduct, and that he was ignorant and incompetent.²⁹ Matsell resisted resignation and was finally removed from office by order of the Governor on December 31, 1875.³⁰

Matsell's removal was duly celebrated with an editorial by the Times, which had for years charged that Matsell’s Police Gazette was “a synonym for everything that is foul and indecent in journalism.”³¹ But other New York newspapers, showed a high regard for Matsell’s efforts and assert that he made the New York Police Department one of the best in the world.³² After leaving the commissioner’s office, Matsell quietly practiced law, providing advice in criminal cases.³³

According to a news item in The New York Times of July 10, 1877, Chief Matsell had suffered an injury to his toes some 20 years prior when, while investigating a crime, he walked on some glass in his stocking feet, cutting them severely. Although that wound healed when he was fortyish, in old age it reopened and gangrene set in.³⁴ Amputation of three toes, and later a leg, failed to stem the infection. On July 25, 1877, with his wife and four children in attendance, George Washington Matsell died in his New York residence at No. 230 East 58th Street, at the age of 71.³⁵

The Big Chief's funeral at St. Thomas Church was attended by many city officials, judges, prominent businessmen and old friends from City Hall. A hundred uniformed policemen escorted his body. Matsell was buried in Trinity Episcopal Church Cemetery at Amsterdam Avenue and 115th Street in New York City.³⁶

Matsell’s wife, Ellen, came to Iowa for the summers with George and returned to New York with him in the fall. However, after he died in 1877, she returned to Iowa and lived here with her children for twenty years. She died on June 12, 1897, at the age of 82, at Matsellton, as the estate was then called. She was interred in Trinity Cemetery in New York City, alongside her husband.³⁷

The Matsells had four children — three sons, Henry Charles (called Harry), George Junior, Augustus (called Gus) and a daughter, Susan. None of them ever married.³⁸

After his father died, George Jr., under his name, and subsequently as the Matsell Brothers, took over management of the farm. During this time the estate came to be called Castle Farm. He kept up the land acquisition and sales project that his father began. George Jr., also made friends in the political arena although he never participated there. He became a close associate of both Theodore Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland. Theodore Roosevelt is said to have visited the Matsell farm at one time.³⁹

Harry died on July 23, 1895 at the age of 48.⁴⁰ Very little has been recorded about him. Susan died in Anamosa on December 27, 1915. She was 78. In her Cedar Rapids Gazette obituary, she was described as “a refined and intelligent woman, greatly esteemed by those who had the pleasure of her acquaintance.”⁴¹

George Jr. and Gus accompanied Susan's body to New York for burial. Both brothers took deathly ill from exposure suffered while waiting in an unheated railroad station in Farley, Iowa. George Jr. died from the exposure on January 6, 1916, at the age of 81.⁴² Gus finally recovered and saw to his brother’s burial in the New York City family plot. He then returned to Iowa and took over the farm management. Gus went to live with his cousin, George Finn, on May 6, 1916. He sold the farm in 1918; it was deeded back to him. He resold it in 1925. Gus died at the home of George Finn on January 6, 1929, at the age of ⁸⁷. All the Matsell children are buried in the family plot in Trinity Cemetery in New York City.⁴³

Sources for Episode Two

(1) B. L. Wick. “George W. Matsell.” The Palimpsest, Vol. V, n. 7 (July 1925).

(2) “Matsell Burial Recalls Famous Police Chief.” The New York Herald Tribune, 18 January 1925.

(3) “Death of George W. Matsell.” The New York Times, 26 July 1877.

(4) The Know Nothings were a secret political party that existed from 1849 to about 1860. Members despised immigrants and Roman Catholics. Know Nothings aimed to prevent foreignborn citizens from holding political office and to stymie foreign influence and ideas. The party’s name resulted from its secrecy. When questioned about the party, members always answered “I don’t know,” which led famed editor and publisher Ned Buntline to dub them “the Know Nothing Party.” The name stuck, even though they adopted the name “American Party” at their 1854 convention in Cincinnati. By 1861 the Know Nothings had no seats in Congress. They disappeared from the political arena soon thereafter.

(5) “Death of Matsell.” The New York Times.

(6) Fragment of newspaper article, source unknown. Content shows it to be a New York City paper from 1845.

(7) “‘Gus’ Matsell, Last of His Family, A Friend of Roosevelt, Dies.” The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette and Republican, 7 January 1929.

(8) “Death of Matsell.” NYT.

(9) The Locofocos were a band of radical Democrats who organized in New York in 1835. Led by idealistic reformers, Locofocos were mostly bluecollar laborers who opposed paper money, tariffs, monopolies and state banks. They were in favor of democratic measures and against measures that worked in favor of the privileged class. They won their name at a nominating convention in Tammany Hall: When statusquo goons turned out the lights in an attempt to break up the radicals’ meeting, the insurgents pulled out new, hightech, friction matches — then called “locofoco matches” — with which they lit the candles that each man carried. Thus they were able to continue. The Locofocos realized the pinnacle of their power and success when President Martin Van Buren successfully urged Congress to pass the Independent Treasury Act, which forced the permanent separation of government and banking. Like the Know Nothings, the Locofocos dissolved amid the political turmoil that marked the late ante-bellum period.

(10) “Early American Historical Properties owned by Mrs. Ida B. Finn, Central City, together with notes regarding them, and their former owner, Chief of Police of New York City, George Washington Matsell.” List compiled by the Lawrence Brothers of Anamosa, Ia., dated 28 May 1941. From Dorothy Cummins’ collection of notes and documents on the Matsells, now part of The History Center collection.

(11) Misc. New York newspaper clippings, source and date unknown. Dorothy Cummins collection, The History Center.

(12) William Andrews. “The Early Years: The Challenge of Public Order, 18451870.” Spring 3100. Electronic document, World Wide Web at http://www.ci.nyc.ny.us/
nyclink/html/nypd/html/3100/retro.html.

(13) “Death of Matsell.” NYT.

(14) “Mystery of Picturesque Matsell Home, Established Near Viola 72 Years Ago By New York Police Chief, Still Unsolved. The Cedar Rapids Gazette, 30 September 1928.

(15) G.P. Bowdish to Jay G. Sigmund. Letter, March 12, 1934. State Historical Society of Iowa.

(16) On the acquaintance of Chief Matsell with Henry Clay see “Webster, Clay, Calhoun and Jackson — How They Sat for Their Daguerrotypes.” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, V. 38, n. 228, May 1869. For Matsell and Daniel Webster see Bell, “Mystery of Picturesque Home.”

(17) “Death of Matsell.”

(18) “Early American Historical Properties.” Cummins Collection. The History Center.

(19) “Matsell Burial.” New York Herald Tribune.

(20) “Death of Matsell.”

(21) On the special train to fetch Matsell, see “Early American Historical Properties.” For the beating of Supt. Kennedy specifically, see Andrews, “The Early Years,” Spring 3100. Follow the link to Draft Riots.

(22) Thomas Lake Harris. Juvenile depravity and crime in our city: a sermon preached Jan. 13, 1850 (Publisher unknown, New York, 1850). LOC call number HV9106.N6 H3.

(23) New York Police Department, George W. Matsell, comp. Rules and regulations for day and night police of the city of New York: with instructions as to the legal powers and duties of policemen (New York: C.C. Childs, 1846). The New York Historical Society has six copies of the work, one of which was inscribed and presented to Chief Matsell by one of his beloved cops.

(24) J.W. Bowdish. “Personal Recollections of Honorable George W. Matsell.” Memoir, Iowa State Historical Society, 1925.

(25) “ExCommissioner Matsell’s Estate.” The New York Times, 5 August 1877.

(26) Wick. “Matsell.” Palimpsest. George Kruse. “New County Park Was Country Estate for Noted New Yorker.” The Cedar Rapids Gazette, 2 April 1967. Dorothy Cummins. “New Linn County Recreation Area Recalls Days of Iowa’s Fabulous “‘Mount Vernon.’” The Des Moines Register, 2 April 1967.

(27) Robert Bell. “Mystery of Picturesque Matsell Home, Established Near Viola 72 Years Ago by New York Police Chief, Still Unsolved.” The Cedar Rapids Sunday Gazette and Republican, 30 September 1928.

(28) “Local Miscellany — Anticipating the Election.” Editorial. The New York Times, 9 October 1875. “The Police Board — Secret Action of the Mayor.” Editorial. The New York Times, 10 October 1875. “The Police Commissioners.” Editorial. The New York Times, 14 October 1875.

(29) “The Police Board.” Article. The New York Times, 25 September 1875.

(30) “Police Board Changes.” Article. The New York Times, 1 January 1876

(31) “The Mayor’s Man Friday.” Editorial. The New York Times, 23 May 1873.
(32) “Matsell Burial.” New York Herald Tribune.

(33) “Death of Matsell.”

(34) ExSuperintendent Matsell Dying.” The New York Times, 10 July 1877.

(35) “Death of Matsell.”

(36) “Funeral of Late Mr. Matsell.” The New York Times, 29 July 1877.

(37) “Gus Matsell Dies.” The Cedar Rapids Gazette and Republican. 7 January 1929.

(38) Ibid.

(39) Ernest P. Mickel. “He Reigned Over Iowa Acres Like a Royal Lord or Duke.” The Des Moines Register, 29 November 1936. Also see Bowdish. “Personal Recollections,” passim.

(40) Henry’s death earned but brief mention in The Cedar Rapids Gazette of 26 July 1895. One short paragraph on page 8 tells readers: “Died at Matsellton, Linn County, Iowa, July 23, Henry Charles, youngest son of Ella Mariam and the late Geo. W. Matsell of New York City. Interment at Trinity, New York.”

(41) “Mrs. Matsell [sic.] Dies at Hospital in Anamosa.” The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, 28 December 1915. The Gazette dubs her “Mrs. Susan Jones Matsell,” despite the fact that she never married.

“Daughter of Pioneer New York Police Chief Appreciated for Worth.” The Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, 29 December 1915.

(42) Mickel. “Reigned Over Iowa Acres.”

(43) “Gus Matsell Dies.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

George Washington Matsell

This story was first published in TimeLines (Vol. IV, No. 4; June 1998), the voice of the Linn County Historical Society. It is reprinted here with permission from The History Center of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

History by Bob Drahozal; Copy Edit by Jimmy Montague

George W. Matsell: Remembering The Big Chief

Anyone traveling north from the tiny village of Viola, Ia., in the middle 1800s would, after about five miles, come to a bridge over the Wapsipinicon River. There, at the south end of the bridge, if travelers raised their eyes to the northwest they would see a mansion on a hill above the north bank of the river and, west of the big house, a magnificent set of farm buildings. Crossing to the north bank, a few yards past the end of the bridge, the traveler's view of the mansion and outbuildings would be blocked by huge trees that towered over the road. From that angle, the only sign of the great house was a gate, framed by a pair of stone gateposts -- ten feet tall -- that stood by the south edge of the way. The gate marked the entrance to the mansion, the summer home of George Washington Matsell, the first police chief of New York City, a pivotal figure in the history of law enforcement, and an important cog in the Irish-Democrat political machine known as Tammany Hall, which then ran the city.

How did this big-town police chief discover Iowa, and why did he choose to build a home here? An Iowa neighbor, Irving P. Bowdish, said he was told by Chief Matsell that the scenery in and about Anamosa, Ia., had been recommended to him by a Jesuit priest as some of the most interesting and beautiful in the nation.¹

A second, more fanciful tale is also attributed to Chief Matsell. Supposedly a group of Indians from Iowa once visited New York City. Their hotel room became unbearably warm, and they retired to the rooftop for relief. The manager had them arrested for disturbing the peace. Chief Matsell heard their story and had them released from custody. He then showed them around the city. They in turn told him of Iowa, of its fresh air, good hunting and good foods, and invited him to visit.²

Why did Matsell locate in such a secluded place? Again there are a couple of theories. One has it that Matsell wanted a landed estate which he could use as a summer home and to which he could, in the English custom, eventually retire.³ The nature of the site he chose supports that idea, as it was more suited to sports and leisure than to farming. Only about 15 percent of the place was tillable; the rest was wooded. The home site featured good spring water and a spectacular view of the Wapsipinicon River.

Another story has it that Matsell came to Iowa to escape prosecution for corruption and to use his illgotten wealth to build his own, private empire in the wilderness.⁴ This latter conjecture is disputed by the fact that Matsell maintained a residence in New York and spent only his summers in Iowa. Still there may be something to it, for (as shall be seen in a second article) Chief Matsell had his share of legal problems in New York.

However he first discovered the state and for whatever reason he chose to build here, Chief Matsell bought a lot of land in Iowa, much of it sight unseen. The area he chose for his purchases was in Buffalo Township, Linn County, east of the Wapsipinicon River, between the presentday towns of Viola and Prairieburg. His first recorded Iowa land purchase was on April 12, 1853.⁵ The original estate was some 1,500 to 2,000 acres. Subsequent purchases, including land belonging to neighbor Thomas Sampson, eventually increased Matsell’s holding to around 3,300 acres.⁶ And while the bulk of the estate lay around the presentday Matsell Bridge Natural Area, Chief Matsell’s properties were scattered to the north of that location, upriver into Boulder Township. Altogether, Matsell had four miles of Wapsipinicon River frontage.⁷

Matsell secured some lands through the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. and authorized his agents to locate contiguous tracts for additional purchases. He used the services of New York attorney John C. Clegg to search out veterans of the War of 1812 who had received land patents for their service and who were willing to sell. In the late 1850s, the U.S. government sold land in Iowa for $1.50 per acre, and Matsell paid veterans slightly more than that for their patents. Clegg usually bought the land in his own name and then transferred ownership to Matsell for a small premium. Other parcels were acquired from owners of Iowa land who were located both in Iowa and in New York, purchases for which attorneys R. D. Stephens of Marion, Ia., and Richard Sampson of New York City acted as Chief Matsell’s agents.⁸

Matsell was also on good terms with various Linn County treasurers, who kept him informed of lands going on the block at county tax sales. Those tax sales provided some great bargains for Matsell. Purchases included a 40acre plot in 1856 for a tax due payment of 92 cents (2.3 cents per acre). Between 1862 and 1865 Matsell took advantage of tax sales to acquire 320 acres for $17.66 (5.5 cents per acre), 40 acres for $2.18 (3.5 cents per acre) and another 40 for $2.92 (7.3 cents per acre).⁹

Because skilled labor was scarce on the frontier, Matsell prevailed on his nephew, Matthew D. Finn, an accomplished carpenter from New York, to come with him to Iowa and supervise the construction of his house and outbuildings. They arrived in 1856. Work began on Chief Matsell’s house almost immediately and was completed the following year. Finn and his descendants also settled in Iowa and have been a source for many articles written about the Matsell family.¹⁰

The main house and outbuildings lay in the southeast corner of Buffalo Township near Sweet Water Spring, which provided a clear, cold, safe water supply then as it does today. Most of Matsell’s crop land was situated north of the river. Many of his fields had names. One large tract south of the river was called “Log Cabin Field” due to a large log cabin — the home of Mike LaBarge — that was located there. Other fields had names such as “South Field,” “Violet Field” and “Chief Tree Field,” the latter socalled because Chief Matsell used to stand near a tree there to watch for deer. A large tract southwest of the river named “Storm Springs Farm” had its own set of outbuildings.¹¹

Matsell was said to idolize his namesake, President George Washington, and therefore, in building his own home, copied elements of Washington’s fabled Mount Vernon.¹² If so, resemblance between the two homes was slight. Such similarities as there were included location — both homes were sited on hills that featured sweeping views of a river — and the fact that both had roofed porches that ran the length of the side facing the river.

The Matsell house was framed with lumber sawed from timber harvested on the farm itself. Siding and finishing materials were hauled in from Dubuque by oxdrawn wagons. The masonry was done by a Mr. Coonrod. Matsell was so pleased with the man’s work that the Chief named a large tree at the entrance to his estate “the Coonrod Tree.”¹³

The house that Matsell built had 25 rooms. It featured a veranda and gables straight out of the Hudson River tradition. The rooms had fireplaces and high ceilings. A kitchen and pantry lay downstairs, along with a breakfast room, a dining room, a bedroom, the living room and a guest parlor. The upstairs was walled off into three separate sections, of which the easternmost was reserved for Matsell family members. The other two sections were for the help, who were hired by the year. The middle section housed female servants; west-end rooms were for serving men. The upstairs also had one room on the east side, known as “the Tent Room,” with large French doors opening onto a balcony that provided a magnificent view of the river. The porch below extended across two full sides of the house, the east and the south. On the north side, a covered driveway sheltered the Matsell’s comings and goings during inclement weather.¹⁴ In sum, the Chief’s Iowa mansion was truly spacious and luxurious and was entirely in keeping with his New York City residence, which was in a fashionable neighborhood.¹⁵

One of the few local people admitted to the Matsell home described the place as replete with magnificent furniture, tapestries and pictures.¹⁶ Silver serving sets were used. Two perfectly preserved chairs from the New York home of President George Washington, used when New York was the capital of the United States, were perhaps the most treasured pieces of furniture in the house. The chairs were brought to America from England by Pres. Washington’s parents. Col. H. F. Talmadge, who served under Washington during the revolution, acquired the chairs and presented them as a gift to Chief Matsell. Several other Matsell treasures were also gifts from Col. Talmadge. There was a block of wood from the Dutch Middle Church of New York City which had been demolished in 1835. Talmadge had stabled horses there during the Revolutionary War. Matsell also had a letter to Talmadge from President Washington. And Talmadge, who was a New York City official during Matsell’s term of office, presented Matsell with a double-barreled shotgun in honor of the chief’s law-enforcement service.¹⁷

It seems Chief Matsell was an inveterate collector, and his Iowa mansion housed many of the items he collected. He seems to have been especially fond of souvenirs. In July, 1923, the Cedar Rapids Gazette described a number of Matsell collectibles then on exhibit in an Anamosa store window as part of that year’s Fourth of July celebration. The items were made available by Matsell’s son, Augustus (Gus), who was living with George Finn at the time.

A newspaper article from 1936 listed many such items still in Gus’ possession.¹⁸ Among the curios named were an Oriental broom, two Japanese vases (a gift from Commodore Perry, a friend of Chief Matsell’s, who brought them back after signing the first treaty with the Japanese in 1854) and a white hat which had been worn by Grover Cleveland supporters. There were letters from Washington Irving; a blood-stained, tattered flag from the battle of New Orleans; a drum from early police parades in New York City; a leather pouch and shotgun once owed by Daniel Webster; tickets to the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge on May 23, 1883; and tickets to first Jenny Lind concert in this country. A unique item was a white dress shirt that had been worn by President Pierce, acquired when Mr. Pierce (who was in New York on other business) stopped by the Matsell house for a change of linen after being caught out in the rain. Pierce’s soiled shirt remained in Matsell’s collection. There were many relics from Chief Matsell’s New York City police service: A cat o' nine tails, shackles, handcuffs, silver badges, etc. One item, a large dinner bell inscribed with Matsell’s name, was presented him by the captains of his police force when he moved to Iowa. In addition, over Finn’s garage door, hung a Minerva ornament from the Astor Place Theater. It was brought to Iowa by Matsell apparently as a reminder of the Astor Place riots in which his police force had played a major role. Another source lists a letter from Samuel F. B. Morse in the collection, as well as a vast number of newspaper clippings, photos, cartoons and pictures.¹⁹

Souvenirs deemed worth their weight in gold were pieces of stone chipped from the slab upon which George Washington stood to take his first oath of office on April 30, 1789.²⁰ Another major souvenir was an anchor from a British frigate. The anchor had been dredged up from the bottom of New York harbor and given to Matsell. A later owner of the Matsell estate, Fred Witousek of Cedar Rapids, found the anchor, which had been cut in two pieces for use as fireplace andirons. Witousek had them welded back together.²¹

According to a 1967 interview with Matsell’s greatgreat nephew, Everett Finn of Cedar Rapids, a truckload of Matsell’s personal belongings was taken to New York City, where a room in that city’s Historical Society building centers on Chief Matsell. However, an ongoing search of museums and archives in New York City has yet to identify the location of those items. Finn claimed that he still had a number of trunks full of pictures, papers, and clippings, plus the Matsell family bible and George Matsell’s diary. Excerpts from the diary had been published in the Police Gazette as first person accounts of criminal episodes. No record of the disposition of these items has been found.²²

Northeast of the house was a gazebo. South and west of the house were the many outbuildings used for the farming operations. These included a cow barn, complete with calf pen and milk room, that sheltered up to 50 cattle. A horse barn sheltered 16 horses on the ground floor, with hay and grain being stored above. A twostory piggery could house hundreds of porkers. There were corn cribs, a pump house, a large toilet, a goat shed, and a machine shed. The ice house featured a large cellar of native stone, where vintages of all ages were stored. Other nearby buildings were a scale house, a blacksmith shop, a firewood storage shed and a lunchroom for hired help who did not live on the farm. On the driveway leading to the main gate was a house for a livein male employee and his family and a shed for their use.²³

Elsewhere on the estate were an office building, a peacock crib, and even a small print shop in which Matsell published his personal newspaper, The Wapsie Ranger.²⁴ Down the hill, by the river, was a boathouse. A little farther east, Matsell had a theater built in which plays were produced by actors who spent their summers as guests of Chief Matsell. The theater was called the Oak Hill, or Oak Glen, or Oak Hall theater, depending upon which source one chooses to believe.²⁵

English and urban in their tastes, George and Ellen Matsell tried to bring that kind of life with them to their Iowa farm. They lived in the luxurious manner to which they were accustomed in New York. With each trip from New York the family brought with them barrels of seafood, choice wines and liquors, eastern sauces and other specialty items. The Matsells did enjoy giving picnic parties, especially for guests from the East Coast, but disliked the lack of refinement on the frontier.²⁶ For this reason, they lived mostly by themselves and seldom invited rustic Iowa guests into their home. An exception was the neighboring Bowdish family, who were one time invited to an “evening lunch.” Mr. Bowdish commented that as soon as the meal was served, the ladies retired to a different room, and none of them were present at the table.²⁷

The Matsells had a corps of servants — maids, butlers, footmen and cooks — most of whom they brought from New York. All hired hands, imported or local, were required to address George Matsell as Master, his sons as Mister and his daughter as Miss. Any who did not do so were immediately discharged.²⁸

Yet Chief Matsell was a man of kindness. As the winter of 1856 approached and his house was being built, he found out that his neighbor, Bailey Bowdish, was having trouble getting his house built. Matsell sent his crew of carpenters over to work on Bowdish’s house, commenting that “They need a house more than I.”²⁹

In their notes on George Matsell, J. W. Bowdish and W. Lee Finn state that Indians who frequented forests in the area respected the “Heap Big Chief” who never spoiled the woods as other white men did. Matsell allowed no trespassing on his tracts by white hunters or trappers, yet the Indians were always welcome. Matsell’s arrival in the big woods also brought the area welcome relief from depredations by the bands of horse thieves with which parts of Eastern Iowa were then infested. The chief’s reputation as a lawman preceded him, and the crooks decided they had better go while the going was good.³⁰

On Oct. 1, 1925, Col. C. B. Robbins of Cedar Rapids, a former Assistant Secretary of War, purchased some 1,072 acres of the Matsell estate from Gus Matsell.³¹ This included the house, outbuildings and some 400 cultivated acres, the rest being in timber. The tract was valued at about $100,000. Col. Robbins traded 2461.8 acres in Bayfield County, Wisconsin, plus a 10year note for $45,000 for the Matsell land.³²

On March 1, 1947, Fred Witousek purchased the Matsell tract from the Robbins estate. He did some restoration work on the main building, but it was eventually allowed to sit unused and to slowly deteriorate.³³

Over the years, legends grew around the estate. There were stories of a tunnel from the house basement to the river to allow Chief Matsell to escape from enemies trying to harm him or to be used as part of the Underground Railroad before and during the Civil War. No tunnels have been found. Another story has Chief Matsell burying a half million dollars in gold in the house. The gold has never been found either. There is also the story that one of his daughters (however, Susan was the only one known) was locked in a cage in the basement and that the basement was haunted by her ghost.³⁴

In February, 1967, the Linn County Conservation Commission purchased the 1,072 acres of land from a Mrs. Julia Kloubec of Albuquerque, N.M., for $107,000 using a federal grant to cover 46 percent of the cost. The commission did not have enough money to restore the buildings, an estimated expenditure of between $300,000 and $500,000.³⁵ They made a two-year attempt to get private backing with no luck. In 1967 the house burned, and the commission decided to have most of the other buildings torn down.³⁶ Photos and drawings of the structures and main estate area were made and filed by the commission.

Today, the gateposts are still standing. Of the rest of the Matsell estate, only the ice house (with its wooden superstructure modified), the water pump and its foundation, and the foundations of several other buildings remain. Photos of the farm, made in April 1998, along with a narrative description of the area and the remaining artifacts, are available at the History Center.

Over the years, more acres have been added to the Conservation Commission’s purchase, now known as the Matsell Bridge Natural Area, bringing the total acreage to 1757, according to a description published on the Linn County Conservation Commission’s World Wide Web site.³⁷ Facilities at Matsell Bridge include a shooting range, a boat ramp, trails for hiking, for horseback riding and crosscountry skiing, a primitive camping area, hikein campsites, an equestrian camping area with hitching posts, and an overnight cabin (Red Oak Lodge). Hunting is allowed in season. Access is available via the Stone City Road and the Matsell Park Road north from Viola. The boat ramp also provides access from the Wapsipinicon River. In addition to the web site, brochures are available at most county office locations.

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(1) J. W. Bowdish. “Personal Recollections of the Honorable George W. Matsell.” State Historical Society of Iowa, ca. 1925.

(2) B. L. Wick. “George W. Matsell.” The Palimpsest, Vol. V, No. 7 (July 1925).

(3) Ibid.

(4) Robert Bell. “Mystery of Picturesque Matsell Home, Established Near Viola 72 Years Ago by New York Police Chief, Still Unsolved.” Cedar Rapids Sunday Gazette and Republican, 30 September 1927.

(5) Wick. “George W. Matsell.”

(6) Ibid.

(7) George Kruse. “New County Park Was Country Estate for Noted New Yorker.” Cedar Rapids Gazette, 2 April 1967.

(8) George W. Matsell Archive. The History Center.

(9) Ibid.

(10) Bowdish. “Personal Recollections.”

(11) W. Lee Finn. Interview by Dorothy Cummins. Manuscript in the Dorothy Cummins Archive.

(12) Dorothy Cummins. “New Linn County Recreation Area Recalls Days of Iowa’s Fabulous ‘Mount Vernon.’” Des Moines Register, 2 April 1967.

(13) Finn to Cummins.

(14) Ibid.

(15) Bowdish. “Recollections.”

(16) Ibid.

(17) Partial lists of the artifacts in Chief Matsell’s collection appear in several sources. See John R. Battin. “Chair Owned by George Washington on Display at Anamosa Pageant.” Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, 3 July 1923. Robert Bell. “Mystery of Matsell Home.” Dorothy Cummins, “Linn County Recreation Area.” Ernest P. Mickel. “He Reigned Over Iowa Acres Like a Royal Lord or Duke.” Des Moines Register, 29 November 1936.

(18) Ibid.

(19) Ibid.

(20) Bowdish.

(21) George Shane. “House Near Viola Symbol of Iowa Past.” Des Moines Sunday Register, 21 August 1955.

(22) Dorothy Cummins. “Linn County Recreation Area.”

(23) Finn to Cummins.

(24) Wick. “George W. Matsell.”

(25) Wick calls it ‘Oak Hall Theatre.’ A map of Buffalo Township dated 1869 names it ‘Oak Glen Theatre’ in Somers, Mary Shakespeare and Belva Butters, eds. A History of Central City, Iowa, and the Surrounding Area 18391989. Central City (Iowa): Fourth Street Publishing. Karen Taylor dubs the place ‘Oak Hill Theatre’ in “Matsell legend haunts park along Wapsie.” Cedar Rapids Gazette, 2 March 1980.

(26) E.P. Mickel. “Reigned Over Iowa.”

(27) Bowdish. “Personal Recollections.”

(28) E. P. Mickel. “Reigned.”

(29) Wick. “G. W. Matsell.”

(30) Bowdish, Wick. Passim.

(31) “Col. Robbins Buys Old Matsell Estate.” Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, 25 August 1925.

(32) Unsigned letter dated July 14, 1925, assumed to be from Col. C.B. Robbins to agents of the Matsell estate. State Historical Society of Iowa.

(33) George Shane. “House Near Viola.”

(34) Lori Erickson. Ghosts of Linn County, Iowa. Fort Madison (Iowa): Quixote Press, 1987.

(35) George Kruse. “New County Park.”

(36) Karen Taylor. “Matsell legend.”

(37) http://co.linn.ia.us/conservation/parks/natural/natural.html

You May Think It's Funny but It Snot

Political opinion surveys are a cheat. They always ask me what I think but never let me answer.

I remember when I was a young man; my first exposure to political surveys came during the Watergate scandal. I used to get things in the mail that asked questions like:

• "Do you think President Nixon should be impeached? Check one: (Yes) (No) (D'uh)"

What I actually thought was: "President Nixon should be stripped naked, strapped belly-down across a barrel and sodomized by a herd of burros at the center of the fifty-yard line in front of a sellout crowd at Soldier Field. Treat it as if it were a Super Bowl game: have it televised live nationally and filmed for posterity (No pun intended). Cameras should do slo-mo close-ups and instant replays. Get Howard Cosell and Julia Child to do play-by-play (Oooh, Howard! Oooh, look! That stuff running down his leg looks just like brownie batter!). Hire the Dallas Cheerleaders to shake it for the burros. Order the Marine Band to perform at half-time, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir should sing. Set off a big fireworks display after the show. Pass a law requiring all presidential candidates to view the film. That will keep future presidents honest."

A lot of my friends felt the same way. Back then we all inhaled a lot of -- but that's another story, isn't it? My point is that no survey ever discovered how we felt, because no survey offered us a chance to check the Nixon-over-a-barrel option. So it seemed to me then that political survey authors assume everyone either thinks in binary or doesn't think at all.

By and by it dawned on me that political opinion surveys aren't about discovering what I think. If the authors had the least respect for me they would address me truthfully. They would say: "We don't care what you actually think. Instead, we want you to tell us what we want to think that you think."

Almost 30 years later, political opinion surveys hadn't changed at all. Take, for example, the "2001 Democratic Party Survey" sent me by then House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Regarding my feelings about the Bush administration, Democrats then wanted to know:

• "Do you believe George W. Bush won the presidency legitimately?"
  (Yes) (No) (Undecided)


• "Did George W. Bush's cabinet selections make you more or less confident about his oft-stated desire to "unite" America and govern with "compassion"?
  (More confident) (Less confident)

I could have answered "No" to the first question but that answer was only half true, for while I didn't believe that Bush won the presidency, I did believe that Al Gore lost it. The fact that I thought so and why I felt that way were things that Gephardt and his Democrats apparently did not want to know.

I could have answered "less confident" to the second question but, once again, that wasn't the whole truth. Had I been allowed to tell the truth, my response to the second question would have been: "Why do you think I place any confidence whatever in George W. Bush? Is it because you suspect I don't trust Al Gore? Truth is I don't trust either of them."

Judging from the survey questions, Gephardt and his Democrats weren't interested in my true feelings. The fact that they seemed incurious explains why I didn't bother to fill out the survey and why I voted third-party in 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008.

Having now been alienated from both major parties for more than 12 years, I face today's national crises as a voter who sees almost no hope for the future. For if, in the past, I saw that leaders of our supposedly democratic government lied because they were indifferent to the wants and the wishes and the cares of common people, today I see that our supposedly democratic system is an utter sham. The government designed by Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Adams and the rest -- allegedly built from love of freedom, hope for the future, faith in man and in the power of reason -- is no more. It was buried under a vast heap of lies told by so many liars over the course of so many years that it finally died for want of air and light if it ever, in fact, existed.

The demise of our Constitution was first revealed to America in November 2005, when President George W. Bush declared that the Constitution "is just a goddamned piece of paper." In May 2006, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) buried our old republic for good: she broke her oath of office, wiped her butt on the Constitution and flushed the mess down her office toilet when she took the impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney "off the table."

The Democratic Party took (and still takes) a lot of heat for Pelosi's sellout. Public outrage waxes hotter daily as truth about the treasonous Bush administration leaks out in dribs and drabs. If one can believe E-mails circulated by activists, petitions demanding justice -- supported by hundreds of thousands of signatures -- are dumped into the lap of one or another congressional committee every few days. The fact that Democratic leaders' damage-control efforts are transparent and increasingly shrill reflects the heat that Pelosi and her Congress are taking.

On March 5 of this year, for example, I got two congressional E-mails. The first came from the office of Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL). Wexler's message trumpets the fact that former Bush gangsters "Karl Rove and Harriet Miers have finally agreed to testify under oath and under the penalty of perjury regarding the firing of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. Rove will also be questioned regarding the politically motivated prosecution of former Gov. Donald Siegelman of Alabama."

The second message came from the office Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT). Leahy's message heralds the Senator's proposal for ". . . a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate abuses during the Bush-Cheney Administration." Said abuses ". . . may include the use of torture, extraordinary rendition, and executive override of laws." Those things ". . . were wrong and must be fully exposed so [they] never happen again."

When I said Democratic damage control is getting shrill, I meant that the lie in Wexler's message is there in plain sight: Out here in the real world, nobody is "asked" or "agrees" to comply with a subpoena. If you or I are served a subpoena, you or I appear in court as ordered. If we don't show up, big ugly goons sporting sheriffs' badges drag us out of our homes and haul us into court. If we won't consent to be hauled, they hose us down with pepper spray, handcuff us, slap us around, and drag us to court without our consent.

Wexler's office wants us to believe that Karl Rove and Harriet Miers live under a different set of rules. When they are served a subpoena they are supposedly free to treat it as an invitation, which they can accept or decline as they please. And so it's nice of Karl and Harriet to "agree to appear before Congress" and testify under oath at a Congressional investigation. The truth is that when Congress subpoenas a witness, that subpoena carries the same power as the subpoena the local judge serves on you or me. If Harriet Miers, for example, doesn't appear when she is summoned, Congress can send big ugly goons sporting federal marshals' badges to Harriet's house and have her hauled in to testify. If Harriet won't consent to be hauled, the goons can cuff Harriet's hands behind her back, shove a baton up her nasty ass and frog-march the old bitch down to the capitol building, where she can choose to testify or go to jail for contempt. This business of Harriet and Karl refusing to testify has only dragged on for so long because Wexler and his Democratic colleagues (for whatever reason) refuse to do their duty.

The lie in Leahy's message is likewise plain to see: If you or I do something wrong, such as kidnap a child (extraordinary rendition) or rob a grocery store (override of laws), authorities will not be content if we confess our wrongs and promise never to do wrong again. Instead we will be arrested. If we resist arrest, it's likely we'll be shot. If we are arrested (or if we survive the shooting), we will certainly be tried whether we confess (fully expose our wrongs) or not, and we will be sent to prison if convicted.

Leahy's office wants us to believe that the crimes of federal officials are different from crimes that you or I might do. Crimes that we commit should be prosecuted and punished. Crimes that federal officials commit should be exposed and publicized -- and forgiven. Says Leahy: "Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened. The best way to move forward is getting to the truth, finding out what happened, so we can make sure it does not happen again." According to Leahy, then, if you and I did a murder and were hanged for our crime that would be justice, and justice is good. But if Dick Cheney were hanged for treason (outing a CIA agent) that would be vengeance, and vengeance is bad.

So it is that one real message Democrats are sending is: We have two criminal justice systems in this country. One system operates on the premise that justice happens when ordinary people are punished for their crimes. The other system operates on the premise that justice happens when influential people are forgiven their crimes. One system features hard-nosed judges and prosecutors who take no nonsense from common criminals and punish them harshly. The other system features sympathetic judges and prosecutors who scold influential criminals, slap their hands, and send them to bed without supper.

Having come this far with me, readers may have noticed that somewhere in the distance between my pot-headed youth and my physician-haunted retirement, I seem to have lost my sense of humor. If you're one of those who noticed, I'm only here to tell you that you are right, and that you should quit laughing, too.

The class of people who presently govern this country -- Democrat and Republican -- aren't laughing with you. While you sit with your beer and snicker and sneer at stupid politicians and their stupid opinion surveys and the outrageously stupid lies they tell, they are fitting America for a set of chains from which Americans may never escape. If a life of debt slavery under an Orwellian dictatorship doesn't appeal to you, the time to act is now.

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