December 31, 1904: First New Year’s Eve Celebration in Time’s Square

Until 1903, New Yorkers generally gathered outside Trinity Church on Wall Street and Broadway to celebrate New Year’s Eve. The New York Times described the scene in 1897: “The crowds came from every section of the city, and among the thousands, who cheered or tooted tin horns, as the chimes were rung out on the night, were many from New Jersey, Long Island, and even Staten Island.”
But on New Year’s Eve, 1904, party-goers headed way uptown for their festivities. The New York Times had just built a tall triangular skyscraper where 7th Avenue, Broadway and 42 Street met, and the paper’s publisher, Adolph Ochs, had successfully lobbied city leaders to change the name of the intersection from “Longacre Square” to “Time’s Square”

Times SquareTo celebrate his new headquarters Ochs planned  a New Year’s Eve celebration that would be the talk of the town. The party commenced with an all-day street festival which culminated in a fireworks display set off from the base of the tower, and at midnight the joyful sound of cheering, rattles and noisemakers from the over 200,000 attendees could be heard, it was said, all the way from Croton-on-Hudson, thirty miles north.

An annual event was born — but two years later, the city authorities, nervous about the possibility of fire, prohibited the fireworks display. Ochs was undaunted.  He arranged to have a large, illuminated seven-hundred-pound iron and wood ball lowered from the tower flagpole precisely at midnight to signal the end of 1907 and the beginning of 1908. The crowd in the square counted down as the ball descended, and then burst into cheers when the New Year arrived.
The New York Times moved west of the Square in 1913, but Times Square continued to be home to a ball drop ever since. The original ball of iron and wood was replaced in 1920 with a 400 pound orb of all iron. In 1955, an aluminum replacement weighed in at a considerably lighter 150 pounds, and was adorned with 180 light bulbs.

Times Square is still the place to be on New Years Eve.

Happy New Year!

December 30, 1806: Thomas Jefferson Addresses the Mandan Nation

MY CHILDREN, THE WOLF AND PEOPLE OF THE MANDAN NATION:

My friends and children, we are descended from the old nations which live beyond the great water, but we and our forefathers have been so long here that we seem like you to have grown out of this land. We consider ourselves no longer of the old nations beyond the great water, but as united in one family with our red brethren here. The French, the English, the Spaniards, have now agreed with us to retire from all the country which you and we hold between Canada and Mexico, and never more to return to it. And remember the words I now speak to you, my children, they are never to return again.Jefferson Medal

We are now your fathers; and you shall not lose by the change. As soon as Spain had agreed to withdraw from all the waters of the Missouri and Mississippi, I felt the desire of becoming acquainted with all my red children beyond the Mississippi, and of uniting them with us as we have those on this side of that river, in the bonds of peace and friendship. I wished to learn what we could do to benefit them by furnishing them the necessaries they want in exchange for their furs and peltries. I therefore sent our beloved man, Captain Lewis, one of my own family, to go up the Missouri river to get acquainted with all the Indian nations in its neighborhood, to take them by the hand, deliver my talks to them, and to inform us in what way we could be useful to them. Your nation received him kindly, you have taken him by the hand and been friendly to him. My children, I thank you for the services you rendered him, and for your attention to his words. He will now tell us where we should establish trading houses to be convenient to you all, and what we must send to them.

My friends and children, I have now an important advice to give you. I have already told you that you and all the red men are my children, and I wish you to live in peace and friendship with one another as brethren of the same family ought to do. How much better is it for neighbors to help than to hurt one another; how much happier must it make them. If you will cease to make war on one another, if you will live in friendship with all mankind, you can employ all your time in providing food and clothing for yourselves and your families. Your men will not be destroyed in war, and your women and children will lie down to sleep in their cabins without fear of being surprised by their enemies and killed or carried away. Your numbers will be increased instead of diminishing, and you will live in plenty and in quiet. My children, I have given this advice to all your red brethren on this side of the Mississippi; they are following it, they are increasing in their numbers, are learning to clothe and provide for their families as we do.

Remember then my advice, my children, carry it home to your people, and tell them that from the day that they have become all of the same family, from the day that we became father to them all, we wish, as a true father should do, that we may all live together as one household, and that before they strike one another, they should go to their father and let him endeavor to make up the quarrel. . .

My children, I have long desired to see you; I have now opened my heart to you, let my words sink into your hearts and never be forgotten. If ever lying people or bad spirits should raise up clouds between us, call to mind what I have said, and what you have seen yourselves. Be sure there are some lying spirits between us; let us come together as friends and explain to each other what is misrepresented or misunderstood, the clouds will fly away like morning fog, and the sun of friendship appear and shine forever bright and clear between us.

December 29, 1835: Treaty of New Echota is signed

trailIn 1832, after gold was discovered in Georgia, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act and Georgia allocated Cherokee land to white settlers, even though the Cherokee Nation never ceded the land to the state.

In May 1835, a small committee of Cherokee, hoping to ease the incessant pressures they were under, signed the Treaty of New Echota and ceded the homelands in exchange for $5,000,000 compensation and safe passage to new lands in the west.

Chief John Ross, their principal chief, was not among the signers. This is from his letter to the United States Senate and House of Representatives:

“By the stipulations of this instrument, we are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defense. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family! We have neither land nor home, nor resting place that can be called our own. And this is effected by the provisions of a compact which assumes the venerated, the sacred appellation of treaty.

We are overwhelmed! Our hearts are sickened, our utterance is paralyzed, when we reflect on the condition in which we are placed, by the audacious practices of unprincipled men, who have managed their stratagems with so much dexterity as to impose on the Government of the United States, in the face of our earnest, solemn, and reiterated protestations.

The instrument in question is not the act of our Nation; we are not parties to its covenants; it has not received the sanction of our people. The makers of it sustain no office nor appointment in our Nation, under the designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other title, by which they hold, or could acquire, authority to assume the reins of Government, and to make bargain and sale of our rights, our possessions, and our common country. And we are constrained solemnly to declare, that we cannot but contemplate the enforcement of the stipulations of this instrument on us, against our consent, as an act of injustice and oppression, which, we are well persuaded, can never knowingly be countenanced by the Government and people of the United States; nor can we believe it to be the design of these honorable and high-minded individuals, who stand at the head of the Govt., to bind a whole Nation, by the acts of a few unauthorized individuals.

And, therefore, we, the parties to be affected by the result, appeal with confidence to the justice, the magnanimity, the compassion, of your honorable bodies, against the enforcement, on us, of the provisions of a compact, in the formation of which we have had no agency.”

General Winfield Scott arrived at New Echota on May 17, 1838, in command of 7,000 soldiers. The Cherokee were removed at gunpoint from their homes, concentrated together in camps, and forcibly removed to Oklahoma.

December 26, 1919: The Curse of the Bambino; Babe Ruth is Sold to the Yankees

“There is no getting away from the fact that despite his 29 home runs, the Red Sox finished sixth last year. What the Boston fans want, I take it, and what I want because they want it, is a winning team, rather than a one-man team that finishes in sixth place.”
– Harry Frazee Curse

Being from New York City, Harry Frazee was always regarded with suspicion by Boston’s sportswriters and baseball fans. He only won them over by being willing to spend big money to acquire top players, even offering the Senators $60,000 for Walter Johnson, to build a winning team on the field.

Frazee bought Babe Ruth from Baltimore in 1914. When Babe Ruth arrived in Boston he became the best left-hand pitcher in baseball, winning 18 games in 1915, 23 in 1916 and 24 in 1917, and he led the Red Sox to win the World Series in 1915, 1916, and 1918.

In 1919, the “Bambino” hit a homer in every American League park, playing 111 games in the outfield when he wasn’t pitching and led the league in home runs (29), runs (103), and RBIs (114). Ruth’s home runs made him a national sensation and brought record-breaking attendance. Even so, the team finished in sixth place and Frazee called Ruth’s home runs “more spectacular than useful.”

Meanwhile, Jacob Ruppert, the New York Yankee’s principal owner, desperately needed a winning team. He asked the Yankee’s manager Miller Huggins what the team needed to be successful. “Get Ruth from Boston” came the answer, along with the hint that Frazee was perennially in need of money to finance his theatrical productions.

On the day after Christmas, 1919, Jacob Ruppert bought the rights to Babe Ruth from Harry Frazee for $100,000, the largest sum ever paid for a baseball player. The $100,000 price included $25,000 in cash, and notes for the balance; Ruppert and Huston assisted Frazee in selling the notes to banks for immediate cash. The deal also involved a $350,000 loan from Ruppert to Frazee, secured by a mortgage on Fenway Park.

The New York Times commented on the acquisition, “The short right field wall at the Polo Grounds should prove an easy target for Ruth next season and, playing seventy-seven games at home, it would not be surprising if Ruth surpassed his home run record of twenty-nine circuit clouts next Summer.”

Ruth hit 54 home runs in 1920. He broke that record several times in the years that followed. His record of 60 home runs in 1927 stood for 34 years. The Yankees, who had never won even the American League championship, went on to win seven pennants and four World Series titles with the “Sultan of Swat”.

The Red Sox, winners of five of the first sixteen World Series, would not win another pennant until 1946, and the “Curse of the Bambino” would not be fully reversed for 86 years until they finally won another World Series in 2004.

December 25, 1882: The Mystic’s Christmas by John Greenleaf Whittier

“All hail!” the bells of Christmas rang,
“All hail!” the monks at Christmas sang,
The merry monks who kept with cheer
The gladdest day of all their year.

But still apart, unmoved thereat,Whittier
A pious elder brother sat
Silent, in his accustomed place,
With God’s sweet peace upon his face.

“Why sitt’st thou thus?” his brethren cried,
“It is the blessed Christmas-tide;
The Christmas lights are all aglow,
The sacred lilies bud and blow.

“Above our heads the joy-bells ring,
Without the happy children sing,
And all God’s creatures hail the morn
On which the holy Christ was born.

“Rejoice with us; no more rebuke
Our gladness with thy quiet look.”
The gray monk answered, “Keep, I pray,
Even as ye list, the Lord’s birthday.

“Let heathen Yule fires flicker red
Where thronged refectory feasts are spread;
With mystery-play and masque and mime
And wait-songs speed the holy time!

“The blindest faith may haply save;
The Lord accepts the things we have;
And reverence, howsoe’er it strays,
May find at last the shining ways.

“They needs must grope who cannot see,
The blade before the ear must be;
As ye are feeling I have felt,
And where ye dwell I too have dwelt.

“But now, beyond the things of sense,
Beyond occasions and events,
I know, through God’s exceeding grace,
Release from form and time and space.

“I listen, from no mortal tongue,
To hear the song the angels sung;
And wait within myself to know
The Christmas lilies bud and blow.

“The outward symbols disappear
From him whose inward sight is clear;
And small must be the choice of days
To him who fills them all with praise!

“Keep while you need it, brothers mine,
With honest seal your Christmas sign,
But judge not him who every morn
Feels in his heart the Lord Christ born!”

December 24, 1741: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is founded

Jesus, call Thou me
from the world to Thee;
Speed me ever, stay me never;
Jesus, Call Thou me.

Not Jerusalem –
lowly Bethlehem
‘Twas that gave us Christ to save us;
Not Jerusalem.

Favored Bethlehem!
honored is that name;
Thence came Jesus to release us;
Favored Bethlehem!

BbethlehemIn 1741 a small group of the “Unitas Fratrum” settled on the banks of the Monocacy Creek near the Lehigh River in Eastern Pennsylvania. The settlers were part of a German speaking sect which had been founded by followers of John Hus, who had been burned at the stake 100 years before Martin Luther for trying to reform the Catholic Church. They called themselves “Moravians” because many of the founders came from the province of Moravia in what is now the Czech Republic.

The Moravians had been sent out from their homeland to bring the good news of salvation and hope to the heathens. They had reached out to slaves in the Caribbean, the Inuit in Labrador, to natives in Surinam, Guyana, and South Africa, and here in Pennsylvania they would reach out to the Delaware and Mohicans.

The “Unitas Fratrum” promoted what they called the “theology of the heart”. They tried to focus on the essential relationship between Christ and the believer rather than being overly concerned about doctrinal differences between churches. Christianity was defined as faith in Christ, love for one another and the world, and hope for the future.

The community they were founding was above all to be joyful. Daily life should be marked by joy in the presence of Christ in every activity. They would live communally, the “brothers” in one house and the “sisters” in another. They placed their trust in God to help them, and picked their leaders and even their marriages by lot. They shared a simple meal, a lovefeast, during worship remembering that Jesus ate his meals not only with his disciples but also with sinners.

On Christmas Eve of 1741, the Moravians’ patron, Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf arrived from Saxony to visit the new settlement. The brothers and sisters gathered in the two-room log home that they had just built to welcome the Count and to worship and give thanks, while their cattle and horses and pigs and chickens settled in the stable side of the house.

Joseph Mortimer Levering’s History of Bethlehem sets the scene:

“Their humble sanctuary, with beasts of the stall sharing its roof, brought the circumstances of the Saviour’s birth vividly before their imagination. With the forest about them, stretching away to where heathen multitudes lived in ignorance of Immanuel, the relation between the subject of that holy night and their purpose towards those dwellers in the forest possessed their minds. It stirred the quick fancy of the Count, always keenly responsive to such impressions.

Acting upon an impulse, he rose and led the way into the part of the building in which the cattle were kept, while he began to sing the quaintly pretty words of a German Epiphany hymn which combined Christmas thoughts and missionary thoughts, as suggested by the homage of heathen sages before the infant Jesus, and made conspicuous in the character given the observance of Epiphany among the Brethren in those days of first missionary zeal. Its language expressed well the feeling of that hour, and the place in which it was sung made the vision of the manger seem very real.

The little town of Bethlehem was hailed, its boon to mankind was lauded, the star that guided the magi to the spot and the light of the gentiles there beaming forth were sought, humble supplication at the Redeemer’s feet was uttered in successive stanzas, and then the song ended. One who was present wrote long afterward: “The impression I there received is yet fresh in my memory, and will remain until my end.”

With this episode a thought came to one and another which gave rise to a perpetual memorial of the occasion, signalizing it as peculiarly historic and enhancing its romantic interest. No name had yet been given to the settlement.

That vigil service and that hymn suggested one. By general consent the name of the ancient town of David was adopted and the place was called Bethlehem.”

December 23, 1776: Thomas Paine publishes the “American Crisis”

THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness Paineonly that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

Whether the independence of the continent was declared too soon, or delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argument; my own simple opinion is, that had it been eight months earlier, it would have been much better. We did not make a proper use of last winter, neither could we, while we were in a dependent state. However, the fault, if it were one, was all our own; we have none to blame but ourselves. But no great deal is lost yet. All that Howe has been doing for this month past, is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the Jerseys, a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and which time and a little resolution will soon recover.

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretense as he.

‘Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth [fifteenth] century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc.

Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment! Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered.

December 22, 1882: First Electric Christmas Tree Lights in New York

Just four years after Thomas Edison began the difficult process of perfecting the electric light bulb, a visiting reporter named Croffut from the Detroit Post and Tribune reported on the how this remarkable new invention had already begun transforming holiday celebrations in New York City:

xmas tree

“Last evening I walked over beyond Fifth Avenue and called at the residence of Edward H. Johnson, vice-president of Edison’s electric company. There, at the rear of the beautiful parlors, was a large Christmas tree presenting a most picturesque and uncanny aspect. It was brilliantly lighted with many colored globes about as large as an English walnut and was turning some six times a minute on a little pine box. There were eighty lights in all encased in these dainty glass eggs, and about equally divided between white, red and blue. As the tree turned, the colors alternated, all the lamps going out and being relit at every revolution. The result was a continuous twinkling of dancing colors, red, white, blue, white, red, blue—all evening.

I need not tell you that the scintillating evergreen was a pretty sight—one can hardly imagine anything prettier. The ceiling was crossed obliquely with two wires on which hung 28 more of the tiny lights; and all the lights and the fantastic tree itself with its starry fruit were kept going by the slight electric current brought from the main office on a filmy wire. The tree was kept revolving by a little hidden crank below the floor which was turned by electricity.  It was a superb exhibition.”

December 19, 1777: Continental Army Sets Camp in Valley Forge

“To see Men without Cloathes to cover their nakedness, without Blankets to lay on, without Shoes, by which their Marches might be traced by the Blood from their feet, and almost as often without Provisions as with; Marching through frost and Snow, and at Christmas taking up their Winter Quarters within a day’s March of the enemy, without a House or Hurt to cover them till they could be built and submitting to it without a murmur, is a mark of patience and obedience which in my opinion can scarce be parallel’d.”
—Letter from George Washington To John Banister, April 21, 1778

Valley ForgeAs winter set in on Pennsylvania, George Washington would much rather have been headed home to the warmth of Mount Vernon, but as Commander-in-Chief he was responsible for the Continental Army, even under the most trying conditions. The British had seized Philadelphia and forced Continental Congress to remove to York, but Washington had promised to “share in the hardship” and “partake of every inconvenience,” and so he led his soldiers into a bitter winter encampment.

When the ragtag Continental Army of 11,000 soldiers (and 500 women and children) marched into Valley Forge, a third of the soldiers had no shoes and many lacked warm coats to protect against the incessant rain and snow. The quartermaster reported that he had just twenty-five barrels of flour and only a little salt pork to feed the entire army. The soldiers struggled to build wooden huts and searched the countryside for straw to use as bedding since there were not enough blankets for everyone. The days grew shorter and the nights grew colder, but Washington hoped that his officers and soldiers, with “one heart” and “one mind,” would surmount the troubles that lay ahead.

The camp at Valley Forge sat on a plateau at the top of a series of protecting hills. Just eighteen miles from Philadelphia, it was far enough away from the rich farmland of Buck’s County to prevent the army from becoming a burden on the local population, but close enough to the occupied capital for the Continental Army to keep pressure on the British and prevent them from foraging across the countryside.

The soldiers trained as General Washington spent his time petitioning Congress for supplies while defending himself against charges of dictatorial ambitions. When he graciously received visiting congressional delegates, they realized that Washington respected the Congress and had no intention of launching a coup. Washington received key support from General Henry Knox, who built fortifications on the hills to defend against attacks, and from Generals Nathanael Greene and Anthony Wayne who scoured the countryside procuring horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs.

The Marquis de Lafayette organized officers from France, Poland, and other European nations into the Corps d’Étrangers, while a Prussian military officer, Baron Friedrich von Steuben, became drillmaster and taught the soldiers how to use the bayonet, and how to form lines quickly in the midst of battle.

Martha Washington arrived from Mount Vernon in February. She took over the management of her husband’s household, helped with his correspondence, and cheered him on by entertaining guests and even staging plays.

By early spring conditions at Valley Forge began to improve. Washington appointed General Greene as the new Quartermaster General and supplies started flowing into camp. The incessant rains continued, but the mood of the camp brightened when news arrived that France had entered into an alliance with the united colonies.

Washington ordered the Continental Army to parade on May 6, 1778 to celebrate the new alliance. Cannons boomed in salute. Thousands of muskets fired a “feu de joie,” a running fire that passed up and down the double ranks of infantrymen. Cheers echoed across the fields. The drilling order and imposing appearance that the troops presented demonstrated their remarkable progress into a unified, fighting force.

On June 19, the Continental Army marched out of Valley Forge. Still together, and in better discipline than before the winter, Washington’s soldiers headed for New Jersey where they would make a successful stand against the British at Monmouth Courthouse.

December 18, 1888: Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason Discover the Cliff Palace on Mesa Verde

On a blustery December morning in 1888, two cowboys from Mancos, Colorado, were riding across the mesa southwest of their ranch, looking for stray cattle. At the edge of the pinyon and juniper forest, as blowing snow swirled about them, Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charlie Mason gazed across a canyon and saw something they had never seen before.

Cliff HouseWetherill could see massive rectangular buildings, two towers, and an archway. “It looks just like a palace,” Mason whispered.

Willa Cather visited the site some years later:

“The journey to the Mesa Verde … is now a very easy one, and the railway runs within thirty miles of the mesa. You leave Denver in the evening, over the Denver & Rio Grande. From the time when your train crawls out of La Veta pass at about 4 in the morning, until you reach Durango at nightfall, there is not a dull moment. All day you are among high mountains, swinging back and forth between Colorado and New Mexico, with the Sangre de Cristo and the Culebra ranges always in sight until you cross the continental divide at Cumbres and begin the wild scurry down the westward slope…

ANY approach to the Mesa Verde is impressive, but one must always think with envy of the entrada of Richard Wetherill, the first white man who discovered the ruins in its canons forty-odd years ago. Until that time the mesa was entirely unexplored, and was known only as a troublesome place into which cattle wandered off, and from which they never came back. All the country about it was open range. The Wetherills had a ranch west of Mancos. One December day a boy brought word to the ranch house that a bunch of cattle had got away and gone up into the mesa. The same thing had happened before, and young Richard Wetherill said that this time he was going after his beasts. He rode off with one of his cow men and they entered the mesa by a deep canon from the Mancos river, which flows at its base. They followed the canon toward the heart of the mesa until they could go no farther with horses. They tied their mounts and went on foot up a side canon, now called Cliff canon. After a long stretch of hard climbing young Wetherill happened to glance up at the great cliffs above him, and there, thru a veil of lightly falling snow, he saw practically as it stands today and as it had stood for 800 years before, the cliff palace—not a cliff dwelling, but a cliff village; houses, courts, terraces and towers, a place large enough to house 300 people, lying in a natural archway let back into the cliff. It stood as if it had been deserted yesterday; undisturbed and undesecrated, preserved by the dry atmosphere and by its great inacessibility.

That is what the Mesa Verde means; its ruins are the highest achievement of stone-age man—preserved in bright, dry sunshine, like a fly in amber—sheltered by great canon walls and hidden away in a difficult mesa into which no one had ever found a trail. When Wetherill rode in after his cattle no later civilization blurred the outlines there. Life had been extinct upon the mesa since the days of the Cliff Dwellers. Not only their buildings, but their pottery, linen cloth, feather cloth, sandals, stone and bone tools, dried pumpkins, corn and onions, remained as they had been left. There were even a few well-preserved mummies—not many, for the cliff dwellers cremated their dead.

ALTHO only three groups of buildings have been excavated and made easily accessible to travelers, there are ruins everywhere—perched about like swallows’ nests. The whole mesa, indeed, is one vast ruin. Eight hundred years ago the mesa was hung with villages, as the hills above Amalfi are today. There must have been about 10,000 people living there. The villages were all built back in these gracious natural arches in the cliffs; with such an outlook, such a setting as men have never found for their dwellings anywhere else in the world. The architecture is like that of most southern countries—of Palestine, northern Africa, southern Spain—absolutely harmonious with its site and setting. On the way from New York to the Montezuma valley one goes thru hundreds of ugly little American towns, but when you once reach the mesa, all that is behind you. The stone villages in the cliff arches are a successful evasion of ugliness—perhaps an indolent evasion. Color, simplicity, space, an absence of clutter, the houses of the Pueblo Indians today and of their ancestors on the Mesa Verde are a reproach to the messiness in which we live.”

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