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Internet Message Format | 1999-09-26 | 45KB

From: "Perry L. Porter" <[e-mail]>
Subject: ---> In a valley of remembered slaughter
Date: 12 Sep 1999 19:47:55 -0600


Sunday,September 12,1999

BY MARK HAVNES THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

MOUNTAIN MEADOW -- In a valley of remembered slaughter overlooked by a
mountain of regret, the president of the Mormon Church on Saturday
rededicated a monument -- commemorating the 1857 massacre of 120 wagon
train pioneers -- at the site where a previous LDS president had torn one
down.

Irony set the stage on the 142nd anniversary of the Mountain Meadows
Massacre as deep blue skies filled with billowy clouds provided the
scenery and a U.S. flag snapped in the mild breeze. There, President
Gordon B. Hinckley, believed to be a prophet by members of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said simply, "I come as a peace-maker."
A crowd of several hundred people -- many of them descendants of the dead
from the ill-fated wagon train -- gathered Saturday morning and heard a
conciliatory message at the meadow nestled in the mountains between St.
George and Cedar City.

Hinckley said it was impossible for anyone to paint an accurate picture of
what happened on that Friday afternoon of the massacre. "We may speculate,
but we do not know." On Sept. 11, 1857, members of an Arkansas wagon train
bound for California corralled their wagons under siege from a group of
Mormon settlers and their Paiute allies. When the battle ended, 120 men,
women and children lay dead in the meadow, creating an ignoble mark on the
history of the LDS Church.

The bones of the massacre victims were left exposed in the field and many
were carried off by animals. Not until May, 1859, did a contingent of U.S.
Army soldiers collect the remains of 36 victims and bury them near the
site where the wagons circled.

The gravesite monument consisted of a stone cairn topped by a cedar cross
bearing the words, "Vengeance is mine and I will repay, saith the Lord."
When Brigham Young, president of the church when the massacre occurred and
the man who led his people from Illinois to the Salt Lake Valley, saw the
inscription he purportedly said, "Vengeance is mine and I have taken a
little." According to lore, Young then raised his right arm and instantly,
those men with him dismantled the cairn and toppled the cross.

Hinckley said the church is sure that Brigham Young opposed what happened
at Mountain Meadow. "Had communications at the time been faster than a
messenger on a horse, the massacre never would have happened," Hinckley
said.

Hinckley's history with the site goes back nearly 50 years; he first
visited the site with his 85-year-old father. Hinckley said they both knew
the site was hallowed. "And we were reverent and respectful." In 1990
before he was named president, Hinckley represented the LDS Church in a
conciliatory meeting in Cedar City, where the victims' families and the
descendants of the Mormons who took part in the event gathered.

Hinckley next visited the monument last year, and found it in such a state
of disrepair that he was embarrassed, and vowed to clean up the monument
site to reflect respect.

The massacre generated animosity between the victims' descendants and both
the LDS Church and descendants of those who did the killing. LDS officials
originally tried to cover up the part played by Mormons by blaming the
slaughter on the Indians.

Later, the church said the Iron County Militia members were there -- but
said the Paiutes threatened to attack the Mormons if they did not
participate.

History has since placed some -- if not most -- of the blame on members of
the militia.

The church worked with the Mountain Meadows Association in restoring the
site. Volunteers from St.

George and Enterprise helped rebuild the rock cairn, and sandstone wall
around it. Other improvements include wider paths, a new bridge over the
skinny stream that flows through the meadow, new landscaping and
stabilization of a ravine the old monument almost toppled into because of
erosion.

Because the 2 1/2-acre site is owned by the church, it will be responsible
for continued upkeep.

Such involvement is not admission of any official church involvement in
the massacre, Hinckley said Saturday.

"That which we the church have done here must never be construed as an
acknowledgement on the part of the church of any complicity in the
occurances of that fateful day," he said.

Most of those attending thought Hinkley's remarks gracious and
appropriate, agreeing that after 142 years the time is past for
recrimination and blame.

Weber State University history professor Gene Sessions was hoping Hinckley
would repeat what he said during a meeting on the monument held last Oct.
31 in Salt Lake City. Sessions, who was at the meeting, said Hinckley was
"talking about the massacre and said, `we regret what happened,' " at
Mountain Meadows.

Sessions thinks that all pertinent information on the matter has surfaced.
"The church is not sitting on any bombs," Session said. "Hinckley said at
the meeting in October, `If I knew of any new information I'd tell you.' "
One addition to the site made last week acknowledges, for the first time,
church members' participation in the attack. Two plaques were installed --
one telling of the alliance between militia members and Paiutes and the
other describing how the military built the first monument after burying
the victim remains they could find.

The bones were accidentally uncovered during work on the latest monument
and reburied during a ceremony Friday.

According to most historians, including Salt Lake City historian Will
Bagley, the events leading up to the massacre were a volatile mixture of
religion and politics agitated by war hysteria.

In 1857 the relationship between the federal government and Brigham Young,
who was governor of the Utah Territory, was contentious. Newly elected
U.S. President James Buchanan heard reports from frustrated federal
officials who had worked in Utah. They complained that Young's autocratic
behavior rendered them ineffective in enforcing federal law, and had
turned the territory into a theocracy. Buchanan decided to replace Young
as governor without telling him.

In April, 1857 Buchanan declared the Mormons in Utah Territory in open
rebellion and ordered federal troops to the area. When the Mormons heard
about the troops, war hysteria seized many. In southern Utah, the hysteria
was whipped into a frenzy by the rhetoric of George A. Smith, general of
the southern Utah militias.

LDS Church members had reason to worry, having been persecuted and forced
to leave five other places where they wanted to settle. Many were prepared
to fight this time.

Into this volatile climate came the Fancher wagon train from Arkansas --
named after Alexander Fancher, who along with his whole family died in the
massacre. The other half of the party was led by John Baker, who was in
charge of the roughly 300 cattle traveling with the caravan and the
cowboys who drove them.

Parley P. Pratt, a well-liked church apostle, had been murdered in
Arkansas shortly before for allegedly trying to steal a Unitarian
minister's wife and children.

The mob murders of church founder Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were
also still fresh in the minds of church members.

Mormons were told not to accommodate the immigrants by selling them food
or letting their cattle graze.

The belligerency angered some members of the wagon train, who began to
harass the Mormons, questioning their patriotism to the country and
calling their oxen names like "Heber" and "Brigham." The Iron County
Militia decided the only solution was to kill the settlers -- who were
against them just as the government was. On Sept. 7, 1857, more than 50
Militia members and Paiute Indians confronted the wagon train.

On Sept. 11, John D. Lee, an Indian agent in the area who had 19 wives and
64 children, negotiated with the Fancher party members to abandoned their
belongings and weapons to appease the Indians and be escorted to Cedar
City. The weary party members agreed. First, two Mormon wagons left -- one
hauling the youngest children and the second one ammunition and weapons. A
third wagon was for the injured.

The women and children followed the wagons toward Cedar City to the
northeast. When they were about a quarter-mile away, the men in the wagon
party marched out in single file, each with a militia member at his side.
After less than a mile, the Militia's ranking officer, Maj. John Higbee,
ordered the column to stop and said, "Do your duty." Each militia member
pulled his weapon and shot the person next to him. The gunfire was the cue
for the Indians and other militia members to jump from hiding places and
butcher the women and children.

It was all over in minutes -- but the enmity, lies and coverups have
dogged the church since.

Lee was the only person successfully prosecuted for the crime. He was
executed at the site by a firing squad in 1877 after condemning Young and
others who sacrificed him. Lee, Issac Haight, the Cedar City Stake
president and Phillip Klingensmith, bishop in Cedar City, were all
excommunicated from the church. Haight was reinstated in the LDS Church in
1874 and Lee posthumously in 1961.

Verne Lee, (a great-great-grandson of John Lee) whose efforts along with
Mountain Meadows Association president, Ron Loving, (a descendant of the
Fanchers) helped organize the new monument's construction, said John Lee
was sacrificed for the church.

He said in all his pre-mission interviews he was asked if John D. Lee was
a relative. "When I said yes, they would say, `There's nothing to be
ashamed of,' but it never went beyond that." Verne Lee thought it was time
for Hinckley to say what he did.

"The past cannot be changed," Hinckley said. "It is time to leave the
entire matter in the hands of God, who deals justly in all things. His is
a wisdom far beyond our own."





Perry     <[e-mail]>    http://pobox.com/~plporter

-



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

From: "Perry L. Porter" <[e-mail]>
Subject: ---> Conference: Relief Society General Meeting
Date: 26 Sep 1999 11:29:37 -0600


[COMMENTARY BELOW THE ARTICLE, provided by me and I am responsible for my
own world view, you may or may not agree with it.  LDS Inc. may not
appreciate criticism, but without it we are not better than the former
failed Communism.]


[Article below redistributed from: ]


LDSWorld-Gems webpage: http://www.ldsworld.com/gems/

=====================

RELIEF SOCIETY GENERAL MEETING, SEPTEMBER 25, 1999
- Focus on Spiritual Goals, Leaders Tell Relief Society
- Changes in Homemaking Program, Purpose\
- Text of new Relief Society Declaration

==================================

FOCUS ON SPIRITUAL GOALS, LEADERS TELL RELIEF SOCIETY
See http://www.desnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C115011826%2C00.html?
 <a
href="http://www.desnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C115011826%2C00.html?">Link<
/a>
See http://www.sltrib.com/1999/sep/09261999/utah/31574.htm
 <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/1999/sep/09261999/utah/31574.htm">Link</a>

With a theme of "Rejoice, O daughter of Zion," the Relief Society General
Presidency and Pres. James E. Faust of the First Presidency addressed the
sisters of the Church in the annual General Relief Society Meeting
Saturday evening.  Sister Mary Ellen Smoot, general president, encouraged
sisters to have "a greater vision of who you are, why you are here and the
unique gifts you have to bring to the Relief Society organization."  She
announced a new declaration, approved by the First Presidency and Quorum
of Twelve, which is intended "to remind ourselves of the grand blessings
of womanhood"  (see below).

Virginia U. Jensen, first counselor in the presidency, announced changes
to the monthly homemaking meetings.  They will now be called "home, family
and personal enrichment" meetings and will emphasize not just practical
skills, but also spiritual instruction and service projects.  Referring to
the instinct of birds who build nests to protect their young, Sister
Jensen stated, "No matter the circumstances of our individual lives,
creating a safe and nurturing environment for those we love is of the
utmost importance."

Sheri L. Dew, second counselor in the presidency, built on the theme by
urging women not to "let the blinding glare of the adversary's enticements
distract us from the light of Christ."  She reminded women to be sure of
their priorities:  "We seek him, not only through studying and searching,
pleading and praying, but by giving up worldly indulgences that straddle
the line between God and mammon.  We are not women of the world.  We are
women of God."

President James E. Faust said that women often forget the "divine
potential" they possess.  "I wonder if you sisters can fully appreciate
the innate gifts, blessings and endowments you have simply because you are
daughters of God...  It is a mistake for women to think that life begins
only with marriage.  A woman can and must have an identity and feel
useful, valued and needed whether she is single or married.  She must feel
that she can do something for someone else that no one else ever born can
do."

=====

CHANGES IN HOMEMAKING PROGRAM, PURPOSE
See http://www.desnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C115011765%2C00.html?
 <a
href="http://www.desnews.com/dn/view/1%2C1249%2C115011765%2C00.html?">Link<
/a>

The change in name reflects the new focus for the Relief Society's monthly
"Homemaking Meeting," which starting January 1 will be called the "Home,
Family and Personal Enrichment" program.

The article states:  "While service has always been a hallmark of the
Relief Society's larger mission, homemaking meeting in recent years has
included more leisure activities, including a wide array of handicraft
projects in many areas. 'We no longer have the luxury of spending our
energy on anything that does not lead us and our families to Christ,' said
Sister Sheri L. Dew, second counselor in the Relief Society general
presidency.  'That is the litmus test for Relief Society, as well as for
our lives.  In the days ahead, a casual commitment to Christ will not
carry us through.'"

According to the article, Sister Virginia Jensen said the meeting format
will include a 15-minute lesson on a spiritual topic, followed by a 60- to
90-minute activity focusing on practical skills and enrichment.  She
listed examples of home maintenance and repair, gardening, quilting and
service.

=======================

[from LDSWorld-Gems webpage: http://www.ldsworld.com/gems/ ]


TEXT OF THE RELIEF SOCIETY DECLARATION
Announced September 25, 1999

                THE RELIEF SOCIETY OF
    THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS

    We are beloved spirit daughters of God, and our lives have
    meaning, purpose, and direction. As a worldwide sisterhood,
    we are united in our devotion to Jesus Christ, our Savior
    and Exemplar. We are women of faith, virtue, vision, and
    charity who:

      Increase our testimonies of Jesus Christ through prayer
      and scripture study.

      Seek spiritual strength by following the promptings of
      the Holy Ghost.

      Dedicate ourselves to strengthening marriages, families,
      and homes.

      Find nobility in motherhood and joy in womanhood.

      Delight in service and good works.

      Love life and learning.

      Stand for truth and righteousness.

      Sustain the priesthood as the authority of God on earth.

      Rejoice in the blessings of the temple, understand our
      divine destiny and strive for exaltation.


Copyright 1999, LDSWorld-Gems - distributed on the Internet via the
  LDSWorld-Gems mailing list.  Messages may be forwarded to individuals
  if this trailer is included, but may *not* be re-posted publicly or
  reprinted in any other form without explicit permission.
LDSWorld-Gems webpage: http://www.ldsworld.com/gems/
To subscribe to Gems, send a message to "[e-mail]"
  with "subscribe ldsworld-gems" (without quotes) in the message body;
  or to leave the list, say "unsubscribe ldsworld-gems".

===========================================

[COMMENTARY FOLLOWS]

[From a news paper article of the conference, where there was suppose to
be a really big announcement.]

>
>Relief Society Women Hear Of New Mission
> Sunday, September 26, 1999
>
>BY CATHERINE REESE NEWTON
>THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
>
>    LDS women have a new mission statement that basically is a
reiteration
>of traditional Mormon values.


[RETRENCHMENT, is the word that comes to mind for me.]



>    Faust also shared a poem whose philosophy was appreciated by his
maiden
>aunt:
>    "When fretted by this single life -- which seems to be my lot,
>    "I think of all the many men whose wife I'm glad I'm not."

Apparently too many single women are dropping out of the church, I would
guess.


>   Text of the Relief Society declaration:
>    We are beloved spirit daughters of God, and our lives have meaning,
>purpose and direction.

[If their lives were filled with meaning, purpose and direction, whey
would they have to even mention it?  I don't go around saying my life is
filled with "breathing".  I just do it. ]

[Apparently many LDS women's lifes are not filled with much meaning,
purpose or direction, else why would they have to even say that! ]

=======================

"While service has always been a hallmark of the Relief Society's larger
mission, homemaking meeting in recent years has included more leisure
activities, including a wide array of handicraft projects in many areas.
'We no longer have the luxury of spending our energy on anything that does
not lead us and our families to Christ,' said Sister Sheri L. Dew, second
counselor in the Relief Society general presidency.  'That is the litmus
test for Relief Society, as well as for our lives.  In the days ahead, a
casual commitment to Christ will not
carry us through.'"

================

[Are these times really any worse than other times?  Church attendance of
all denominations is up the last few decades from previous times.]

[If handy crafts were a waste of time that took women away from god and
family and did not beautify the home or increase the talents of the
members, then why was it tolerated for so many decades?  Where was the
inspirations off the leaders during those decades?]

====================

     Find nobility in motherhood and joy in womanhood.

[If a women has joy and self esteem, from having a successful career, what
if that career is not leading towards Christ, but simply towards security
and lively hood?]

      Delight in service and good works.

[What if the service is with the PTA or homeless, taking time away from
family and church, should that be stopped?  What if it is a reading group
that is self-fulfilling or intellectually simulating, when the books are
not about family or church?]

      Love life and learning.

[What if the degree is Molecular biology, or literature, that does
stimulates intelligence and skills in areas other than family or church.
this contradicts the statement:]

'We no longer have the luxury of spending our energy on anything that does
not lead us and our families to Christ,' said Sister Sheri L. Dew, second
counselor in the Relief Society general presidency.


       Stand for truth and righteousness.

[If truth such as the flood in the bible was not universal as the article
in the Ensign stated, or that Brigham Young's quotes in the
Priesthood/Relief Society manual were falsified to remove embarrassing
references to polygamy, if the Relief Society sisters stand for up for
those truth, that contradicts and do not "Sustain the priesthood as the
authority of God on earth", what with the priesthood then tell those
women, what is important about standing up for truth?  Will the priesthood
deal with such a stand with righteousness or with control and domination?]








Perry     <[e-mail]>    http://pobox.com/~plporter

-



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

From: "Perry L. Porter" <[e-mail]>
Subject: ---> Philo Farnsworth
Date: 26 Sep 1999 22:11:24 -0600

Philo Farnsworth

http://www.pathfinder.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/farnsworth.html

Electrical Engineer
Philo Farnsworth

The key to the television picture tube came to him at 14, when he was
still a farm boy, and he had a working device at 21. Yet he died in
obscurity.


BY NEIL POSTMAN
For those inclined to think of our fading century as an era of the common
man, let it be noted that the inventor of one of the century's greatest
machines was a man called Phil. Even more, he was actually born in a log
cabin, rode to high school on horseback and, without benefit of a
university degree (indeed, at age 14), conceived the idea of electronic
television--the moment of inspiration coming, according to legend, while
he was tilling a potato field back and forth with a horse-drawn harrow and
realized that an electron beam could scan images the same way, line by
line, just as you read a book. To cap it off, he spent much of his adult
life in a struggle with one of America's largest and most powerful
corporations. Our kind of guy.

I refer, of course, to Philo Taylor Farnsworth. The "of course" is meant
as a joke, since almost no one outside the industry has ever heard of him.
But we ought not to let the century expire without attempting to make
amends.

Farnsworth was born in 1906 near Beaver City, Utah, a community settled by
his grandfather (in 1856) under instructions from Brigham Young himself.
When Farnsworth was 12, his family moved to a ranch in Rigby, Idaho, which
was four miles from the nearest high school, thus necessitating his daily
horseback rides. Because he was intrigued with the electron and
electricity, he persuaded his chemistry teacher, Justin Tolman, to give
him special instruction and to allow him to audit a senior course. You
could read about great scientists from now until the 22nd century and not
find another instance where one of them celebrates a high school teacher.
But Farnsworth did, crediting Tolman with providing inspiration and
essential knowledge.

Tolman returned the compliment. Many years later, testifying at a patent
interference case, Tolman said Farnsworth's explanation of the theory of
relativity was the clearest and most concise he had ever heard. Remember,
this would have been in 1921, and Farnsworth would have been all of 15.
And Tolman was not the only one who recognized the young student's genius.
With only two years of high school behind him, and buttressed by an
intense auto-didacticism, Farnsworth gained admission to Brigham Young
University.


Page 1

The death of his father forced him to leave at the end of his second year,
but, as it turned out, at no great intellectual cost. There were, at the
time, no more than a handful of men on the planet who could have
understood Farnsworth's ideas for building an electronic-television
system, and it's unlikely that any of them were at Brigham Young. One such
man was Vladimir Zworykin, who had emigrated to the U.S. from Russia with
a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. He went to work for Westinghouse with a
dream of building an all-electronic television system. But he wasn't able
to do so. Farnsworth was. But not at once.

He didn't do it until he was 21. By then, he had found investors, a few
assistants and a loving wife ("Pem") who assisted him in his research. He
moved to San Francisco and set up a laboratory in an empty loft. On Sept.
7, 1927, Farnsworth painted a square of glass black and scratched a
straight line on the center. In another room, Pem's brother, Cliff
Gardner, dropped the slide between the Image Dissector (the camera tube
that Farnsworth had invented earlier that year) and a hot, bright, carbon
arc lamp. Farnsworth, Pem and one of the investors, George Everson,
watched the receiver. They saw the straight-line image and then, as Cliff
turned the slide 90[degrees], they saw it move--which is to say they saw
the first all-electronic television picture ever transmitted.

History should take note of Farnsworth's reaction. After all, we learn in
school that Samuel Morse's first telegraph message was "What hath God
wrought?" Edison spoke into his phonograph, "Mary had a little lamb." And
Don Ameche--I mean, Alexander Graham Bell--shouted for assistance: "Mr.
Watson, come here, I need you!" What did Farnsworth exclaim? "There you
are," said Phil, "electronic television." Later that evening, he wrote in
his laboratory journal: "The received line picture was evident this time."
Not very catchy for a climactic scene in a movie. Perhaps we could use the
telegram George Everson sent to another investor: "The damned thing
works!"


Page 2

At this point in the story, things turn ugly. Physics, engineering and
scientific inspiration begin to recede in importance as lawyers take
center stage. As it happens, Zworykin had made a patent application in
1923, and by 1933 had developed a camera tube he called an Iconoscope. It
also happens that Zworykin was by then connected with the Radio
Corporation of America, whose chief, David Sarnoff, had no intention of
paying royalties to Farnsworth for the right to manufacture television
sets. "RCA doesn't pay royalties," he is alleged to have said, "we collect
them."

And so there ensued a legal battle over who invented television. RCA's
lawyers contended that Zworykin's 1923 patent had priority over any of
Farnsworth's patents, including the one for his Image Dissector. RCA's
case was not strong, since it could produce no evidence that in 1923
Zworykin had produced an operable television transmitter. Moreover,
Farnsworth's old teacher, Tolman, not only testified that Farnsworth had
conceived the idea when he was a high school student, but also produced
the original sketch of an electronic tube that Farnsworth had drawn for
him at that time. The sketch was almost an exact replica of an Image
Dissector.

In 1934 the U.S. Patent Office rendered its decision, awarding priority of
invention to Farnsworth. RCA appealed and lost, but litigation about
various matters continued for many years until Sarnoff finally agreed to
pay Farnsworth royalties.

But he didn't have to for very long. During World War II, the government
suspended sales of TV sets, and by the war's end, Farnsworth's key patents
were close to expiring. When they did, RCA was quick to take charge of the
production and sales of TV sets, and in a vigorous public-relations
campaign, promoted both Zworykin and Sarnoff as the fathers of television.
Farnsworth withdrew to a house in Maine, suffering from depression, which
was made worse by excessive drinking. He had a nervous breakdown, spent
time in hospitals and had to submit to shock therapy. And in 1947, as if
he were being punished for having invented television, his house in Maine
burned to the ground.

One wishes it could be said that this was the final indignity Farnsworth
had to suffer, but it was not. Ten years later, he appeared as a mystery
guest on the television program What's My Line? Farnsworth was referred to
as Dr. X and the panel had the task of discovering what he had done to
merit his appearance on the show. One of the panelists asked Dr. X if he
had invented some kind of a machine that might be painful when used.
Farnsworth answered, "Yes. Sometimes it's most painful."

He was just being characteristically polite. His attitude toward the uses
that had been made of his invention was more ferocious. His son Kent was
once asked what that attitude was. He said, "I suppose you could say that
he felt he had created kind of a monster, a way for people to waste a lot
of their lives."

He added, "Throughout my childhood his reaction to television was 'There's
nothing on it worthwhile, and we're not going to watch it in this
household, and I don't want it in your intellectual diet.' "

So we may end Farnsworth's story by saying that he was not only the
inventor of television but also one of its earliest and most perceptive
critics.

Page 3


Neil Postman is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Media Ecology at New
York University.


Philo Farnsworth

"He was an American original, brilliant, idealistic, undaunted by
obstacles."

-- DAVID MCCULLOUGH, on the PBS television show "The American Experience"



Learn more about Philo Farnsworth!

TV's Forgotten Hero: The Story of Philo Farnsworth
by Stephanie Sammartino Mcpherson

Fascinating biography of the inventor responsible for making television
work as we know it today.

Check out Barnes and Noble's TIME 100 bookstore.

ABOUT THE BOOK


Synopsis
This is a biography of the American inventor whose interest in electricity
led him to develop an electronic television system in the 1920s.
Bibliography. Index. "Grades four to six." (SLJ)


Annotation
A biography of the persistent experimenter whose interest in electricity
led him to develop an electronic television system in the 1920s.


From The Publisher
A biography of the persistent experimenter whose interest in electricity
led him to develop an electronic television system in the 1920s.


Reviews
From School Library Journal
Gr 4-6-Philo Farnsworth-not your everyday household name-is introduced in
this well-researched and accurate biography of the inventor responsible
for making television work as we know it today. His unique ability to use
the principles of electricity and to tirelessly experiment until his
theory of electronic transmission was proven effective is simply, yet
thoroughly explained. McPherson incorporates information about family,
personal feelings, triumphs, and failures in language that flows easily.
There is enough drama and suspense to stimulate readers' interest. Good,
clear diagrams explain concepts and theory. Numerous back-and-white photos
complement the account of Farnsworth's childhood, family life, and
scientific world and work. A respectable bibliography and index round out
this informative and succinct profile.-Rita Soltan, Baldwin Public
Library, Birmingham, MI

From Tim Whitney - Children's Literature
Young Philo Farnsworth was fascinated by electricity and loved to tinker
with the generator at his uncle's ranch in Idaho. By age fourteen his
tinkering and inventiveness led him to the idea of a television system
that would transmit an image line by line. During the 1920's his own
television system became a reality when Philo found financial backing in
California. But with the delay caused by World War II and with the
expiration of patent dates in the 1940's, Farnsworth Television did not
have the funds to make a name for itself and compete with large companies
like RCA. Accompanied by many authentic photographs, a bibliography, and
an index, this well-written biography has an excellent balance of
information on Philo's personal life, professional life, and explanation
of theories on television. Although his name is virtually unrecognizable
to the general public, television would not be what it is today without
Philo Farnsworth's curious mind and inventiveness.

========================================

QUIZ:
What was the first image transmitted by television?

a) The number 1
b) An illustration of a hamburger
c) A photo of President Herbert Hoover
d) A dollar sign



BORN Aug. 19, 1906, in Indian Creek, Utah


1921 Has idea for how to create images using electrons

1927 Transmits first electronic image

1934 Stages first demonstration of his TV system

1935 U.S. Patent Office awards "priority of invention"

1939 After seven years of litigation, RCA agrees to pay him royalties

1947 Patents begin to expire; he is hospitalized for depression

1971 Dies March 11 in Holladay, Utah



WEB RESOURCES:
The Farnsworth Chronicles
Contains in-depth writings on the life of television's inventor

The American Experience: Big Dreams, Small Screens
Charts the development of TV and the technology behind it


Big Dream, Small Screen
Transcript


DAVID MCCULLOUGH, SERIES HOST: Good evening, and welcome to The American
Experience.

I'm David McCullough. Who was Philo T. Farnsworth? If you're drawing a
blank, that's understandable. He's not exactly a household word. There's
no familiar product bearing his name, no place on the map, not a
Farnsworth Institute or University, nor even passing mention of him in the
usual history books, though there should be all of that. Philo Farnsworth
effected change so profound and far-reaching that we're still incapable of
knowing the half of it. For his was the genius that transformed electrons
into visual images. His was the genius that gave birth to television, and
it is a story so compelling, so very American, as to seem the stuff of
myth. Like Abraham Lincoln, he was born in a log cabin. Like such other
American giants of science and invention as Franklin, Edison, the Wright
brothers, he sprang from the most obscure beginnings and without formal
training. He was an American original, brilliant, idealistic, undaunted by
obstacles, and so steadfast in the faith that nothing was impossible that
others of like spirit gladly risked everything out of faith in him. Jimmy
Stewart would have been perfect in the part, and particularly in the
inevitable showdown with the corporate juggernaut of the day, RCA. In a
now-famous lecture in praise of patent laws, Abraham Lincoln spoke of the
importance of protecting and encouraging the fire of genius in the
discovery and production of new and useful things. Once having seen
tonight's film about the fire of genius as manifested on one twentieth
century farm boy, I doubt that any of us will ever again have trouble with
the question, "Who was Philo T. Farnsworth?"

NARRATOR: While plowing a field in 1921, a fourteen-year-old Mormon boy
named Philo T. Farnsworth began to think about an idea that would change
the world. He wanted to send pictures over the air, like sound over radio.
As the story goes, he had a vision in a potato field. He looked down at
the tracks left by his disc harrow and imagined tiny electrons creating a
similar picture, line by line. His epiphany in the field inspired him to
invent the first working electronic television, a feat that most engineers
at the time thought was impossible. This is the kind of legend that
usually guarantees an inventor worldwide fame and fortune, yet the name
Philo T. Farnsworth has long been forgotten.

GARRY MOORE: Now, we're not going to identify this contestant, panel. We
will call him simply "Dr. X." Now, Doctor, if you will whisper your secret
to me, we will show it at the same time to the folks out there. All right.
To help to classify Dr. X's secret, I'll tell you it concerns something he
did. And we'll start with Bill Cullen, please.

BILL CULLEN: Do doctors use this object? Is this some kind of a machine
that might be painful when it's used?

PHILO FARNSWORTH: Yes. Sometimes it's most painful.

GARRY MOORE: You're a wise man.

HENRY MORGAN: Are you a dentist?

PHILO FARNSWORTH: No, no. I'm not a dentist.

SKEE FARNSWORTH: No one knew who Philo Farnsworth was. People in the
industry knew, particularly the older people that were actually around
when he was demonstrating television in 1930. When I was a kid it was in
the '40s. There wasn't any television happening. So, if you said, "My
father was an inventor and invented television," people would say, "That's
nice. What is it?"

GARRY MOORE: This is Dr. Philo T. Farnsworth who invented electronic
television.

KENT FARNSWORTH: I suppose you could say that he felt he had created kind
of a monster, a way for people to waste a lot of their lives.

HENRY MORGAN: Doctor, truthfully. Are you sorry?

PHILO FARNSWORTH: No, no. I'm not.

HENRY MORGAN: Well, it's up to you.

GARRY MOORE: I asked him the same question, and he said, "Sometimes." He
said, "Sometimes."

KENT FARNSWORTH: Through my childhood, his reaction to television was,
"There's nothing on it worthwhile, and we're not going to watch it in this
household, and I don't want it in your diet, your intellectual diet."

GARRY MOORE: Unfortunately, television being what it is, it's your baby
and we're out of time. So, here are your Winstons, sir, the money that you
won, and our eternal gratitude. I'd be out of work if it weren't for you.
Thank you very much.

ROSE KAPLIN, SKEE FARNSWORTH'S PARTNER: He was out there all alone, all
the time, and had been since the time he was a child. I mean, can you
imagine being a child and hearing about all these things, and then
thinking about them, and then getting ideas, and starting to work them
out, and learning how to put them into mathematical terms, and not having
anyone to really talk with about it? I just visualize him as being more
and more and more and more alone intellectually, reaching a point where it
never even occurred to him that there might be other people who could
think at the same level that he did.

NARRATOR: Philo was born in a log cabin in Indian Creek, Utah in 1906. The
oldest of five children, he was soon put in charge of his younger sisters,
Laura and Agnes.

AGNES LINDSAY: We always lived in remote, remote areas.

LAURA PLAYER: In a log cabin.

AGNES LINDSAY: In a log cabin with no --

LAURA PLAYER: We calcimined it.

AGNES LINDSAY: -- with no modern facilities. And so, he had no -- Really,
was never exposed to any of these ideas.

NARRATOR: The family were Mormon settlers who eked out a living in Utah's
barren valleys. They were always loading their wagons in search of better
land.

LAURA PLAYER: Papa was born before the railroad came to Utah, and he had
the pioneer spirit. He was hunting for good soil. We used to move so much
that we used to say that every time we harnessed a horse, the chickens
laid down to have their legs tied, just automatically, because we were
going to move again.

To read more check out:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/technology/bigdream/bigdreamts.html

TeleQuotes

Television will enormously enlarge the eye's range, and, like radio, will
advertise the Elsewhere...A door closing heard over the air, a face
contorted, seen in a panel of light--these will emerge as the real and the
true--and when we bang the door of our own cell, or look into another face
the impression will be of mere artifice. (E.B. White, author, 1938)

In only two decades of massive national existence television has
transformed the political life of the nation, has changed the daily habits
of our people, has molded the style of the generation, made overnight
global phenomena out of local happenings, redirected the flow of
information and values from traditional channels into centralized networks
reaching into every home. In other words it has profoundly affected what
we call the process of socialization, the process by which members of our
species become human. (George Gerbner, Dean of Annenberg School of
Communications of the University of Pennsylvania, circa 1968)

(Television is) an instrument that was, in both overt and subliminal ways,
more important and dominant in our lives than newspapers, radio, church,
and often, in the rootless America of the seventies, more important than
family and more influential and powerful than the government itself.
(David Halberstam, journalist, 1970s)

The medium is the message. (Marshall McLuhan, media scholar and critic,
1963)

Television is another industry in America. It gets enormous attention
because of its visibility. But it's run like all those other
industries...If the major oil companies did well selling you an additive
last year, they're going to find another additive plus this year, and
they're going to raise prices again. They're going to do what they can
within the economic system to improve their profits, and to continue
giving the public what it seemed to want last year. (Norman Lear,
television producer)

Defeat and dreariness are what happens to you during the day. At night, in
front of the box, most people want to share in victories, associate with
winners, be transported from reality. (Bob Shanks, former vice-president
of ABC Television and author of The Cool Fire)

See it Now ....is by every criterion television's most brilliant, most
decorated, most imaginative, most courageous and most important program.
The fact that CBS cannot afford it but can afford Beat the Clock is
shocking. (John Crosby, TV critic for the New York Herald Tribune, on the
CBS's 1958 decision to cancel Edward R. Murrow's groundbreaking program)

We wouldn't have had a prayer without that gadget. (John F. Kennedy on the
role TV played in his winning the presidency in 1960.)

When television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in
front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay
there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and loss sheet or rating
book to distract you--and keep your eyes glued to that set until the
station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast
wasteland... (FCC Chairman Newton Minow, at a 1961 address to National
Association of Broadcasters)

Television makes war of no more consequence than a movie star's latest
marriage, the arrival of the Beatles, a Senator's pronouncement, a
three-alarm fire...(Columnist John Horn on television's trivialization of
war)

Whenever explorers go in the future accompanied by television camera's,
they will be actors, making their nebulous exits and entrances for the
benefit of multiplanetary audiences. Nowhere will there ever again be pure
events (if there ever were); everything hereafter will be stage-managed
for cosmic Nielsens, in the interest of national or universal
establishments. (Saturday Review critic Robert Lewis Shayon)

It is hard to exaggerate the narrowness of reference, the indifference to
reading, the lightly dimpled cultural shallowness of many young products
of American TV culture, even the privileged ones. (Robert Hughes, The
Culture of Complaint)

Television is not time-out from thinking, as so many fear. It provides
grist for the mills of thought, innumerable opportunities for cognitive
growth. (Robert Hodge and David Tripp, Children and Television)

Television isolates people from the environment, from each other, and from
their own senses. (Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of
Television)

The audience is sophisticated enough to recognize that media images are
stereotypes, and don't hesitate to complain...the public no longer takes
television for granted as if it were natural, or a wondrous gift of
beneficent science. (Todd Gitlin, Inside Prime Time)

In television's stable of 35 home-life comedies, it is a rare show that
treats Father as anything more than the mouse of the house--a bumbling,
well-meaning idiot who is putty in the hands of his wife and family. (Time
magazine, 1944)

...The giant has arrived. He was a mere pip-squeak yesterday, and didn't
even exist the day before, but like a genie released from a magic bottle
in The Arabian Nights, he now looms as big as life over our heads. Let us
therefore try and circle round him and see if he will step on us, or make
us sick and happy, or just what. (American Mercury, 1951)

Ours has been called the jet age, the atomic age, the space age. It is
also, I submit, the television age. And just as history will decide
whether the leaders of today's world employed the atom to destroy the
world or to rebuild it for mankind's benefit, so will history decide
whether today's broadcasters employed their powerful voice to enrich the
people or debase them. (FCC Chairman Newton Minnow, 1961)

Television? The word is half Latin and half Greek. No good can come of it.
(C.P. Scott, circa 1932)

From :

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/technology/bigdream/quotes.html





[Commentary:  This message is being passed around the internet.  If you
have read this far, it should be obvious that Philo T. Farnsworth
influenced not the American but the world TONS more than GBH!]

VOTE FOR GORDON B. HINCKLEY
Time Magazine is allowing us to vote for Time Magazine's Person of
the Century, which will be in their December 1999 issue. I propose that
we vote for the prophet. Each of us knows at least one person with email
- CONTACT THEM. Pass this on to everyone you know.
To vote go to: http://www.pathfinder.com/time/time100/toppersonmain.html

When you get to the site you must write Gordon B. Hinckley in exactly
this way. Upper case G, Upper case B.(period), Upper case H; all the
rest lower case. Apparently the poll is case sensitive and writing it
any other way does not allow your vote to be counted.

Remember to PASS THIS ON.

P.S. From what I heard the winner of the poll will have their picture
on the front cover of the magazine in Dec 99.

[Who was more visionary?  Transmitting images through the air, while
plowing a potato field, or sitting in a leather chair envisioning The PR
that could be generated with the dedication of the 100th temple, by
building smaller and cheaper temples?]

[Which was done by years and years of work and which was done by the
stroke of a pen, and by spending other peoples money?]

[Man of the century?  Give me a BREAK!]

[Philo Farnsworth has my vote, hands down!]



Perry     <[e-mail]>    http://pobox.com/~plporter

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