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Show Curiosa Americana! : By Elmo Scott Watson MONROE (?) DOCTRINE WE CALL it the "Monroe Doctrine" Doc-trine" but it might more properly prop-erly be called the "Adams Doctrine," Doc-trine," for John Quincy Adams, Monroe's secretary of state, was the man who saw the need for it and formulated it even though it did appear in Monroe's handwriting in his message to congress in December, De-cember, 1823. But if you want to go back even farther for its origin, then a pretty pret-ty Russian baroness comes in for her share of responsibility. Her name was Barbara Juliane von Vietinghoff-Scheel and she was the youthful wife of elderly Baron von ' Krudener, Russian ambassador to Berlin. Also she became the sweetheart sweet-heart of Alexander I, czar of all the Russias, and under her spell he supported her scheme for a Holy Alliance by which, she believed, the world could be run according to the principles of Christian charity. All the sovereigns of Europe, except ex-cept the pope, the king of England Eng-land and the sultan of Turkey, joined the Holy Alliance, thereby pledging themselves to aid each other when the need arose. When Spain lost her American colonies and called upon the Holy Alliance to help her get them back, George Canning, British foreign minister, proposed that the United States join with England in opposing the plan. John Quincy Adams, however, proposed that an independent declaration dec-laration of policy be issued. It was the famous Monroe Doctrine which brought about the collapse of the Holy Alliance. They say Helen of Troy had "the face that launched a thousand ships." But the pretty face of Baroness Bar-oness von Krudener has been responsible re-sponsible for keeping the fleets of the United States, for the last century, cen-tury, ready to back up . the "Monroe "Mon-roe Doctrine" which was formulated formu-lated by John Quincy Adams. LIGHTS OUT TF THE lights in a convention hall hadn't gone out when they did, James G. Blaine might have been President of the United States. It happened in Cincinnati in 1876. When the Republican national convention con-vention opened, Blaine was the outstanding out-standing candidate for the nomination. nomi-nation. Although he was short of the necessary majority on the first six ballots, on the seventh ballot he had the votes of 351 delegates, almost enough to win the nomination. nomina-tion. It was growing late and the lights were turned on gas jets, for this was before the day of the electric light. The Blaine men were hurrying hurry-ing the vote, to put their man over. Then suddenly the lights went out and the business of the convention con-vention was suspended while the management of the hall tried to locate lo-cate the trouble. The Blaine men were frantic. Finally the superintendent superin-tendent of the gas works announced that the trouble couldn't be located. locat-ed. So the only thing to do was to adjourn until the next day. When the delegates reconvened, the anti-Blaine forces had rallied and united on Rutherford B. Hayes, who was nominated. In the much-disputed much-disputed election of 1876 he defeated Samuel J. Tilden, the Democratic nominee, and went to the White House. It might have been "Blaine of Maine" who- went there, if the lights in Cincinnati hadn't gone out that night. GREATLY EXAGGERATED NE of the most famous of Mark Twain's witty remarks resulted result-ed from a case of mistaken identity. identi-ty. In 1897 his cousin, James H. Clemens, was taken seriously ill in London. Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) happened to be in the British Brit-ish capital at the time and somehow some-how a report got out, that the great humorist had died. Thereupon several reporters from London newspapers called at the house where Twain was staying stay-ing to get the details of his death. Great was their surprise when the supposed dead man opened the door to admit them. When they confessed to him their purpose in coming, he said, "You find a pret- , ty lively corpse, don't you?" "But our editors expect us to bring back a story about your death," persisted one reporter. "What shall we do?" "Well," said Mark Twain, "you can just tell them that the report of my death has been greatly exaggerated!" ex-aggerated!" (F) NVslern New.-paiier Union. The Kinkajou The kinkajou is a species of the raccoon family found in South America, and sometimes known as a honey bear, a yellow lemur, a manaviri, and even t Mexican weasel. wea-sel. The adult is the size of a large cat and its fur is short, thick and yellowish brown in coloring with shadings of deep brown on the neck and over the back and ribs. A peculiar pe-culiar feature of this covering is the flexibility of the skin. It can be stretched several inches from the body with no discomfort to the am-mal am-mal and serves as a great protection protec-tion when attacked. The long tail is much the same cs a monkey's and used in the same lashion for holding or grasping an object. |