| Author |
Message |
    
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 2258
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 3:56 am: | 
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Can anyone tell me what a mugwump is?!!
I ask because of this brief snippet:
Morning Oregonian
24 November 1888
(Rochester NY Democrat)
The mugwumps have a dark suspicion that David B Hill is in some manner connected with the Whitechapel murders.
Who David B Hill is, I have no idea |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3299
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 4:10 am: |
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Hi Chris-
Chambers-n. An Indian chief: a person of great importance,or one who thinks himself so:one who disassociates himself from political parties,a smug Independant.[Algonquian mugquomp-a great man.]
Well thats Mugwump sorted..(sounds disturbingly familiar doesn't it!!)
Working on David B Hill.!!
Cheers
Suzi |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3300
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 4:15 am: |
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Chris- Try these think this could be the man.
http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/hill2.html
and
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/browse.author/h.116.html
Suzi |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3301
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 4:19 am: |
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On the 2nd link, click on 'We are too much governed' for the text
Suzi |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3302
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 4:26 am: |
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Gotcha!!!!
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/bibdisplay.pl?index=H000590
Suzi |
Howard Brown
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Howard
Post Number: 1167
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 5:43 am: |
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Chris:
In the USA, a mugmump was someone who was generally neutral in political affairs and specifically,someone who left abruptly from the Republican Party in 1884.
That was also the name of a folk band in the 1960's..as well as the reference to Indians above.
Hope this helps.. |
John V. Omlor
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Omlor
Post Number: 1918
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 6:39 am: |
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Not that it's relevant, but...
For a good deal more on an utterly different sort of mugwump, please read the wonderful novel by William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch. And you can see one version of what they might look like in the David Cronenberg film of the same name.
--John (who saw the thread title and had to climb out of the basement) |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3303
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 1:24 pm: |
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Chris-
This is all that Chambers said and follow the links
Suzi |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3304
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 1:30 pm: |
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This 'Herbert' seems to be our man!!!!
Suzi |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3305
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 3:01 pm: |
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Right this seems to be the 'Biography Page' interesting looking guy....looks disarmingly like Chamberlain too!
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000590
Suzi |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3306
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 3:03 pm: |
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But WHERE did the connection with the Whitechapel Murders idea come from?????
Over to you Chris!
Suzi |
Chris Scott
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chris
Post Number: 2259
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 5:08 pm: |
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Hi Suzi
Thanks for all that great work on Mr Hill!
Again, where the mention of Whitechapel fits in, I have no idea
Chris |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3308
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 5:10 pm: |
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Chris =
There's a board link here
http://www.casebook.org/press_reports/morning_oregonian/881002.html
Suzi |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3309
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 5:17 pm: |
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Chris-
Thanks!!!
Have Really enjoyed it!!!!
Just found this link ,but it doesnt take us any further does it, even from the Casebook one..am into some further digging re The Whitechapel link as well... it's all ODD to say the least!
Back to it then!
Suzi |
Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3310
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 5:32 pm: |
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And have the handwriting...............doesnt look promising ......
Suzi
x |
Jeffrey Bloomfied
Chief Inspector
Username: Mayerling
Post Number: 967
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 23, 2005 - 9:23 pm: |
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Hi all,
Regarding the comment:
David B. Hill was a leading upstate Democrat, who in 1882 ran as Lt. Governor with Grover Cleveland as Governor in New York State. Cleveland won. Hill was very fortunate, because two years later Cleveland was elected President of the United States. Hill became Governor, and would serve three terms (one of a handful of New York State Governors who did have more than two terms).
Hill was not a reformer like his boss Cleveland. He was a Democrat machine politician. He was also as ambitious as sin. He watched Cleveland serve his first Presidential term, and get defeated by Benjamin Harrison in a screwed up election in 1888 (Harrison won the electoral college, but lost the popular vote - sound familiar?). Although this did not discount Cleveland from making a political comeback, Hill decided that it was his opportunity to aim for the White House in 1892. First he tightened his control over the New York State Democratic Party (not too difficult - Tammany Hall disliked Cleveland's reform work). Then he got himself re-elected Governor twice. His masterpiece was in 1892, when he got the state legislature to elect him (as it was done back then) to the U.S. Senate for a full term. He was still Governor, and he held onto the governorship for part of a year that he was supposed to be in Washington. Why? Because he figured that he had a chance to capture the Democratic Presidential nomination from Cleveland.
He called a snap convention of Democrats to railroad his nomination by the New York State Democrats as their favorite son candidate for the Presidency. But here his skill hit a snag - Cleveland's strength was his remarkably honest character. He had little of the political sneak in him like Hill. So Cleveland's supporters denounced the snap convention. Cleveland went on to win renomination in 1892, and to beat Harrison for the Presidency that year. Hill finally went to Washington, and served one term. He did not get the 1896 Presidential nod from the party, as a new face (William Jennings Bryan) had arisen to confront the plutocracy in the country.
Hill was famous for his partisanship, and made the comment, "I am a Democrat!" into a kind of mantra about his point of view on politics. But he could not really stomach Bryan, a reformer who made President Cleveland look like a reactionary. In 1896 he was asked if he would support the Nebraskan Congressman. "Well boys,", Hill told the newsmen, "I am a Democrat still....very still!" He did not do much for the 1896 campaign.
The Mugwumps had been the breakaway group of Republicans and Independents (like Reverend Henry Ward Beecher and former Civil War General and Senator Carl Schurz) who supported Cleveland in the 1884 Presidential campaign. They would not support the popular Republican candidate, Senator James G. Blaine of Maine, who had been involved in two railroad bribery scandals. Cleveland was far more personally honest of the two, so he won their support (even after the Republicans revealled Cleveland may have had an illegitimate child with a prostitute named Maria Halpern). They did not like Hill anymore than Blaine, and while their comment about Hill was not meant to be taken seriously it shows the degree of their animosity.
"Mugwump" had a derivation from some Native American term. However, it became a type of fence sitter or "trimmer" type. A funny description of a "Mugwump" (which still is passed around) is a person who sits on a fence with his "mug" on one side and his "wump" on the other.
Best wishes,
Jeff |
Helge Samuelsen
Inspector
Username: Helge
Post Number: 495
Registered: 4-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, November 24, 2005 - 4:52 am: |
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Most have been said allready, but a Mugwump is in contemporary language simply a politician who flaunts his independence.
That is, he is not only independent, but he flaunts it as well.
Helge
"If Spock were here, he'd say that I was an irrational, illlogical human being for going on a mission like this... Sounds like fun!" -- (Kirk - Generations)
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Jennifer Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 3237
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 24, 2005 - 5:45 am: |
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sounds like something out of Harry Potter to me!!
"You know I'm not gonna diss you on the Internet
Cause my mamma taught me better than that."
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Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3311
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 24, 2005 - 6:17 am: |
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That's mugglewump ...silly!!!
Five word rule!
Suzi |
Jennifer Pegg
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Jdpegg
Post Number: 3246
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 24, 2005 - 4:23 pm: |
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are you sure this isnt it?
"You know I'm not gonna diss you on the Internet
Cause my mamma taught me better than that."
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Suzi Hanney
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Suzi
Post Number: 3312
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 24, 2005 - 5:28 pm: |
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HE HE Chris............. where were we????
Suzi |
