Vintage News Articles & Finds

[billycw]

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth. The checks he endeavors to give it, however warrantable by ancient usage, will, more than probably, kindle a flame, which may not be easily extinguished; tho’ for a while it may be smothered by the Armies at his command, and the Nobility in his interest."

-George Washington Letter to James Madison - March 02, 1788

Washington Rallying the Americans at the Battle of Princeton - William Ranney - 1848


The Founding Growers

Part 1: George Washington

America was founded by bad ass revolutionaries. It just so happens many of them were also hemp growers...

Lets get the fact that George Washington was a mythical bad ass out of the way...

Even before the Revolutionary War that would surely claim his place in history, Washington was already creating legend.

In 1755 Washington was aide-de-camp under General Edward Braddock during the French and Indian War. This put him in the position of errand boy/secretary to General Braddock, a low unrespected volunteer title holding no military rank...

In a botched surprise attack, General Braddock was shot off his horse... Surrounded and seeing Braddock unable to continue, Washington mounts the horse and takes the reins.

As if he was a mythical ghost General, he starts riding back and forth shouting commands at the troops. A shot cripples his horse sending Washington to the ground among the carnage... Getting to his feet he mounts the first horse he see's and continues to ride through the bullets shouting to the troops...

With a crushing shot a second horse is shot again sending Washington to the ground... In the madness without missing a stride he mounts a third horse, finally commanding the troops to safety...

In the aftermath of the battle, Washington had 4 bullet holes in his jacket without being struck himself... He was the only man to not be shot on horseback of the British that day...

"Our rifles were leveled, rifles which, but for you, knew not how to miss ... I am come to pay homage to the man ... who can never die in battle."

-Indian Chief who shot at Washington that day, would later recount

- Letter from George Washington to William Pearch - FEB 24, 1794

“I am very glad to hear that the gardener has saved so much of the st. foin seed, and that of the india hemp. Make the most you can of both, by sowing them again in drills. The hemp may be sown anywhere.”

— George Washington, in a letter to William Pearce, Feb. 24, 1794


Bad ass established, we are here to talk about George Washington the Hemp Grower...

There are many points of reference I can pull from but I will focus on his own words in his own hand writing...

February 24, 1794 with his gardens on the mind in preparation for the upcoming season, Washington writes his head Gardener William Pearce. In the letter Washington is stoked the indian hemp seeds were collected from past harvest and had survived the winter.

In turn Washington tells Pearch to "Make the most you can of both, by sowing them again in drills. The hemp may be sown anywhere"...

This could on its own prove George Washington was a hemp grower, not only a hemp grower but a Indian Hemp Grower as well...

-Letter from George Washington to James Anderson - May 26, 1794


"I thank you as well for the Seeds as for the Pamphlets which you had the goodness to send me. The artificial preparation of Hemp, from Silesia, is really a curiosity; and I shall think myself much favored in the continuance of your corrispondence."

- George Washington letter to James Anderson 1794

George Washington the Connoisseur

Not only did Washington grow cannabis, he sought out the best seeds and methods for better crops...

In a letter to James Anderson in 1794, Washington thanks him for sending him seeds from overseas. Adding a interest in a new hemp preparation from Silesia (possibly hashish or a linen technique).

Adding to his excitement of the package Washington adds, "I shall think myself much favored in the continuance of your corrispondence." hoping for more...

- page from George Washington’s diary - day 7 (August 7, 1765)

“began to separate the male form the female .. bit to late”

-George Washington’s diary - day 7 (August 7, 1765)



Washington the Cannabis Grower

Looking as far back as 1765 in Washington's diary, he was already growing hemp in the New World. Not only growing hemp but separating the males from females, a practice primarily used for smokable product being the seed was also utilized at the time...

In perfect timing to catch a sexing outdoor cannabis crop, Washington writes in his diary “began to separate the male form the female". Realizing some pollination had already occurred he adds "bit to late”...

George Washington was not only a Cannabis Grower he made it truly American to do so...


“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

― George Washington

 

[billycw]

"Heaven is blessed with perfect rest but the blessing of earth is toil."

~Henry van Dyke

Ploughman - Ilya Repin

 

[heady blunts]

 

[billycw]

Welcome aboard Heady, we still have a long ride ahead

Harvest intermission finally done, back to the show

 

[billycw]

Radio Stars/ magazine
July 1938
article: "EXPOSING THE MARIJUANA DRUG EVIL IN SWING BANDS!"

"YOU'VE read about marijuana, of course. Newspapers recently have been, full of stories about reefer-crazed young men and women jumping from windows, killing policemen, robbing, assaulting and running amuck, while under the influence of the weed. And many stories about marijuana say that among those who first spread its use here were musicians; specifically, "hot" or "swing" musicians.

Did that mean, then, that the hot virtuosi of rhythm we listen to on the air are not just highly talented, expert "ride" men? Were the sizzling trumpet licks, the ingenious, and finger-breaking riffs of the clarinet, the wacky off-beat of the drums all the product of drug-inflamed performers? There was one way to find out, so your reporter tried it. Knowing something of music, and musicians, I investigated, questioned and tried to get the low-down on marijuana in its connection with music.

It wasn't very simple; those who know, or who have been using the "hay" themselves, are naturally reticent about it. Stories and articles giving statistics on the spread of the weed, criminal records of the various shocking crimes committed under its influence, guesses and estimates were all very significant. But I wanted to get the, first-hand facts from musicians themselves. And the, following facts came to light.

Most of the really big-time swingsters are definitely not reefer addicts; produce their effects entirely legitimately. Yet, at least one major, hot organization on the air is usually "high" on reefers.

Musicians' use of marijuana is confined almost wholly to swing players.

Those who "hit the weed" seem to use it more temperately or to show less violent reactions than users outside the musical profession.

The most persistent users among the "cats" are the younger players and the second and third raters who think both that it's "smart" to smoke, and that the "hay" improves their technical ability.

Colored swingsters, on the whole, are "walking on air" more often than whites; yet, again, most Negro top notchers avoid the stuff.

I talked first to some "sweet" musicians, whom the "cats" call "long underwear" men. They were vague or completely mystified about marijuana. Those who had heard about it knew very little and shied away from discussion, understandably enough. Mark Warnow, one of radio's top-notch "straight" leaders, said: "I can truthfully say that neither myself nor any of my orchestra ever even heard about reefers until recently. Not very long ago a man appeared on the We, The People program for which we played, and he spoke about marijuana. And we had only the vaguest notion of what he was talking about until he had explained himself.

"My orchestra is a group of serious young men and women who take their music seriously; who love music. They are no more associated with the wild, hectic type of music than they are with opium or black magic. We find our music on the pages of our arrangements, not in sudden improvisations. And the personal---the creative element---in performance is given to shadings of tone, to interpretation and nuances of expression. I know that no musician of this type with whom I have been associated has had anything to do with marijuana."

Emil Coleman, society bandleader and popular exponent of "sweet" music, says essentially the same thing. "The youngest member of my orchestra, in point of service," he says, "has been with me for twelve years. Some have been with me for twenty years, so I believe that I know my men pretty well, particularly since I pick my musicians from the standpoint of character as well as a high degree of musical ability.

"Swing music, it appears to me, seems to need some stimulant, it requires extreme cleverness of its performers; perhaps some get that (Continued on page. 18) stimulant from marijuana. I really don't know. Our stimulus comes from our audience---the people we know and for whom we play. Ours is a pliable orchestra; we work without arrangements, shaping our music to please the dancers, playing what our friends like to hear. I know none of my group uses other stimulants, and I'm so sure that if someone should tell me differently I would not believe it."

These two leaders are fairly indicative, and their sincerity cannot be doubted. Therefore tracking down the "hay" smokers led, inevitably, to the swing group. And there can be no question that it is here reefers are rampant. Yet it was significant to discover that the real Kings of Swing, the boys on top, do not depend upon reefers for their ability. Artie Shaw, bandleader and performer extraordinary on the clarinet, spoke frankly about it.

"It's true," he nodded, "that reefers can be something of a problem in swing bands. But I think the worst angle to it is that the 'jitter-bugs'---the young swing fans of high-school age, so often 'hit the tea.' To give you an example, I was playing a dance date up in a certain town when a youngster, obviously in his early 'teens, came up to the platform. He said: 'Hey, Artie-how about "breakin' a stick" with me in intermission?' He took it for granted that because I was leading a swing band I smoked reefers." Breaking a, stick, of course, was an invitation to have a smoke.

"I think," Artie went on, "that the hysterical articles about marijuana do more harm than good. A mature, well-balanced individual is not apt to play around with reefers; it's the youngsters in search of a sensation, or the emotionally unstable type, the 'screwballs,' who are the most likely prospects. And those are the very ones who will not be scared away by horrible stories of marijuana's weird effects. They get a kick out of trying something dangerous, unpredictable. The more they read about wild orgies held while 'walking on air' the, smarter they think it is to play around with reefers.

"I found once, dealing with a youngster who was a good musician, but hitting the weed, that the best cure was kidding him out of it. Once boys and girls get the idea that kids use reefers, that it's high-school stuff and a prop for second-raters in music, they'll leave it alone'. I know that in this case I speak of it worked and the lad quit when no amount of terrorizing would have influenced him."

I quote Artie Shaw at length because I found what he said to be, sound. More than one bandleader admitted that he had encountered the marijuana, menace in his outfit. One leader told me of a young man in his band who was a crackerjack musician, but who used the weed so consistently that he was quite undependable. The fits of deep depression reefers so often, produce would seize him until he had to be restrained, from suicide; in addition, procuring a supply of the weed in strange towns was a problem, also, and he became increasingly miserable when deprived of it. And this, I think, is significant: Not once did I find any testimony that would bolster, the belief that getting "high" on reefers really improved musical ability. True, like alcohol, the "tea" will release inhibitions and sometimes allow a latent ability to show. But more often than not, the musician who is "walking on air" can do as well if not better in his normal, un-stimulated condition. One instrumentalist who admittedly smokes "hay' put it this way: "I never use the stuff when I'm working," he assured me. "Sure-I hit the tea occasionally, for relaxation, for a kick. But I made a definite test once and I found that, so far as I was concerned, reefers made me want to play, made the notes sound wonderful. But the actual results were far inferior to my usual performance. That is---while it releases musical inhibitions it also impairs the critical faculties, so that what I played wasn't really half, as good as it sounded to me."

That is an individual reaction, of course, and no two persons react in quite the same way to the Mexican weed. But what this musician said seems pretty well borne out by others. True, quite a few swingmen smoke the hay occasionally. Some of them are the better type musicians. And almost invariably, the better the player the less he uses the weed. Carried right to the top of the profession it means that few of the top notchers smoke at all and none of them depend upon "hay" for their, swing ideas. Your reefer addict who has become an, habitual user is almost invariably a youngster, a serond-rater or a "nut" type who would be susceptible to dangerous sensation in any field o endeavor. I know definitely of only one real swing star who habitually got high on the weed, and he was a colored musician whose career was almost ruined by his addiction.

Unquestionably, marijuana's most serious menace is in the peddling of cigarettes to school kids; in the prevalence of "hay" smoking among teenaged youngsters incapable of realizing the dynamite they are playing with. That this is so has been demonstrated by various, government investigations. There are so-called "booth-joints" where kids can get a hot dog, a (Continued on page 54) coca-cola and a reefer for a quarter. And these children make up the main body of the swing fans; they are the jitter-bugs who dance in the aisles when Benny Godman plays the Paramount; from them come many of the newer recruits to the ranks of swing musicians. This presents the conflicting picture of stories, unquestionably authentic, of horrible crimes committed while "reefered up," and the picture I got from many musicians who smoke an occasional reefer without becoming either addicted or dependent upon it . . . or so they say. And, if you'll bear with the writer's opinion, the answer to that probably is that, like alcohol, some can take it moderately and some cannot. Drunkenness has caused innumerable tragedies, many crimes. But everyone who takes a drink is not an intoxicated maniac, though the extreme cases are the ones that make the headlines. The dangerous difference between marijuana and alcohol is that while liquor's effects vary somewhat with individuals, the general effects are pretty much the same; whereas marijuana's reactions are never the same in two persons and often not the same any two times with the same person! For marijuana has as many different manifestations as it has names, the cigarettes, in which form it is mostly used, being known as muggles, (though that term is old hat now-definitely "corny"), mootah, Mary Warner, hay, tea, mezz, brifo, or reefers, all meaning the dried yellow buds of the Mexican hemp weed, canntabis.

And just what does this insidious stuff do? Well, after a few drags you find a pleasant exultation pervading you. Everything becomes simplified to your mind; problems resolve themselves with crystal clarity, slight remarks become hilariously funny or intolerably depressing. You have all the power in the world and nothing is too difficult for you to do. Your mind goes racing on, ahead of your tongue, and you find yourself talking interminably, perhaps, annoyed with yourself as you hear your own voice going on and on, failing, somehow, to make the point you are after and rambling endlessly without volition. Then, possibly, your brain sharpens---you see everything clearly; you are a master mind and you can settle any argument with sparkling and brilliantly pungent remarks. You are strong and agile and freed of any physical demands or limitations except that you become voraciously hungry. You may lean back in your chair and enjoy weird and exotic hallucinations; talk with nonexistent beings, suffer delusions of grandeur. Perhaps you'll be surprised to find yourself leaping madly about, indulging in wild physical activity; dancing all night, fighting or merely cavorting without fatigue. You may sink into a slough of despondency and suddenly realize, incontrovertibly, that the best thing to do is to throw yourself from a window. And if you feel that way you probably will throw yourself from a window. Or, you may as easily decide that your companion should be killed . . . and you'll kill him.

Eventually you'll fall into a profound sleep from which you cannot be awakened, and afterward, no matter what your reactions have been, you'll probably suffer an awful depression and be tortured by finding yourself in some strange circumstances, unable to recall quite what occurred. Or else you will recall some shocking occurrence and hate yourself for having done it.

Not you of course. The foregoing are only a few of the possible reactions. The "tea" might as easily madden you to a homicidal frenzy, like that of the Filipino who runs amuck; it might make you a philosopher, a rapist or a thief. But, unlike any other narcotic, it has no legitimate use; it never did anyone one bit of good, whereas it has caused more tragedies, ruined more lives than any equivalent stimulant. It never helped a good musician, and it never, never made a good instrumentalist out of a poor one.

It's good stuff to stay far away from."

 

[heady blunts]

Welcome aboard Heady, we still have a long ride ahead

Harvest intermission finally done, back to the show

thanks for the warm welcome billy! sorry i only popped in and didn't say hi. i'm always excited to find another thread of yours. this one looks awesome! congrats on the front page placement, that's how i stumbled across the thread.

 

[billycw]

The Case of the Suddenly Appearing Cannabis Plant

September 6, 1951

Like any other morning Police start to arrive to work at Van Nuys station in California. What they didn't know is a dinner party mystery awaited them this day...

A nicely potted cannabis plant had shown up seemingly overnight inside the police station. Like a good game of Clue, questions were asked only deepening the mystery. It seems no one wanted to claim this highly illegal cannabis plant in the police department...

But what to do when your stumped on the case? You play with evidence like any teen female of course...

The inquisition would come to a head when the higher ups arrived later that morning...

Turns out the plant had been sent to the station ahead of a coming narcotics lecture later that week. Where the plant was sent from was excluded from all news releases...

 

[billycw]

"They tried to bury us but they didn't know we were seeds."

- Mexican proverb

The Sower - Jean-François Millet - 1850

 

[Ph-patrol]

Great Paris Flood 1910

Great Paris Flood 1910

 

[billycw]

Scottish or Irish woman smoking pipe around 1900

 

[billycw]

"If"

-The Spartan ephors 346bc

Greek Vase - black-figure krater, c. 530 BC


"Better than a thousand hollow words,
is one word that brings peace."

-Buddha



346 bc, King Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Great's dad) having just being victorious in the Third Sacred War against the Phocians, thought he would throw his weight around. His plan? To intimidate the Spartan's...

Sending a messenger to Sparta with his prepared statement of intimidation he writes,

"You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army on your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people and raze your city."

Other versions have the statement as simply

“If I win this war, you will be slaves forever.”

or

"If I invade Laconia, I shall turn you out"
-as quoted by the 1st-century Greek scholar Plutarch, in Plutarchs' Moralia. Volume VI. 511 A.

The Spartan response to King Philip was just one word...

"If"

On this response King Philip decides to look elsewhere with his military...

Marble statue of a helmed hoplite (5th century BC), possibly Leonidas


As the years go by so do the battles for King Philip including wars with the Thebans, Athenians, Ardiaioi, Scythians...

Feeling undefeatable King Philip again sends a message to Sparta...

King Philip message asked the Spartan Ephors "whether they wished that he should come as a friend or as a foe"...

Again the Spartan's respond with just one word...

"Neither"

Spartan helmet on display at the British Museum



King Philip and his son Alexander the Great never invaded Sparta...

 

[billycw]

Before and after a Kentucky hemp harvest in 1905


Cutting hemp with a binder and four-mule team circa 1905

The “tented hemp fields” of Auvergne, KY circa 1905

 

[billycw]

"All things truly wicked start from innocence."

-Ernest Hemingway

Two musicians playing a guitar and a pipe with another figure - Northern Follower of Caravaggio - 17th century

 

[billycw]

A commonly depicted scene that was used in ancient Greece of Ajax and Achilles Gaming. I really dig this one with a plant center stage from an Athenian artist dated from 490 bc.

Ajax and Achilles Gaming on vase - Athenian Red Figure c490 BCE - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

 

[billycw]

1943 hemp for victory poster

Hemp for victory - Page 7 of the master contract between Commodity Credit Corporation, a corporate agency of the United States and War Hemp Industries, Inc. circa 1943



"All the hempseed available in the U.S. is stacked in this Kentucky warehouse under armed guard. Next year, USDA hopes, there'll be enough to grow 350,000 acres."

Farm Journal and Farmer's Wife - June, 1942


In 1943 under the Federal "Hemp for Victory" program, the United States produced 375,000 acres of Hemp...

 

[billycw]

1918 - National War Garden Commission poster

 

[billycw]

 

[billycw]

Poster for Sam Newfield’s 1949 drama movie ‘Wild Weed’

 

[billycw]

“Certain bodies... become luminous when heated. Their luminosity disappears after some time, but the capacity of becoming luminous afresh through heat is restored to them by the action of a spark"

- Marie Curie

Boy Lighting a Pipe - Hendrick Terbrugghen - 1623

 

[Betterhaff]

Poster for Sam Newfield’s 1949 drama movie ‘Wild Weed’

View Image

Watched this film again not too long ago...kind of a "Reefer Madness II" only 13 years later. This poster is much better though' more artsy.

The lead role was played by Lila Leeds, who was arrested with Robert Mitchum for marijuana possession in 1948. She spent 60 days in jail. Rumor has it her role in the film was part of her community service.