"From the Boys"

Here is the inscription on the the gold-handled walking stick

New Year 1884
E. O. Jones
From the Boys

Given the date, I suppose this was given to Ellis Oliver Jones (1833 - 1894), rather than to Ellis Oliver Jones (1873 - 1967), who would have been about ten years old in 1884. I've always assumed that the boys were his three sons.

Click to Embiggen

The Testament of Henry Miller

Among the documents I have is a typescript of a testament written by one Henry Miller. This man was born February 23, 1819 in Mount Vernon, Ohio. He is the paternal great-uncle of the Ellis Oliver Jones who is the subject here. That man's mother, Eugenia Miller Jones was the daughter of Jonathan Miller, the eldest brother of Henry Miller. In this document, dated in 1884, a year before his death, and when my great-grandfather was about eleven years old, he recounts what he remembers of his family history.

You may click on each of the following pages to make them readable. I've tried this weekend -- unsuccessfully -- to abstract the data here into the family tree I'm building at Geni.com. Go, if you care to http://www.geni.com/people/Ellis-Jones/384809866210013734 . If you can't see it, let me know. I'll find a way to let you in.

There are redactions made after the fact (see the * notes on some pages, and the final page is directed to "my" branch of the family. I guess by the typing style that these are the work of our Ellis Oliver Jones.

Click and then click again on the following image to make it readable

Reading about the Sedition Trial of 1944

I have begin to read the historical and legal literature on the sedition trial of 1944. It's very interesting. It seems to be the general consensus that whatever the merits of the case against the extraordinary collection of defendants might have been, the process was mishandled by the prosecutor and the judge, and was manipulated by political forces at the highest level.

Very early among the legal analyses seems to be:

The Sedition Trial: A Study in Delay and Obstruction
The University of Chicago Law Review , Vol. 15, No. 3 (Spring, 1948), pp. 691-702
(article consists of 12 pages)
Published by: The University of Chicago Law Review
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1597541

There is a great deal more for me to read.

I can scarcely imagine what it must have been like to observe this process during war time. I can imagine even less what it must have been like to have been related to one of the defendants - one identified as one of the crackpots among them, let alone to have shared a name with him as my father and grandfather did. Dad was in secondary school during the war. Grandad was a safety officer in the Ethyl Corporation and from 1943 to 1945 was a Special Assistant to the Director of the Petroleum Administration for War.

Uncertainties

Life is earnest. Life is real.
As we go from meal to meal,
Searching for the rightful diet.
When we find it, we must try it,
Doubting if we can digest it
For at best we've only guessed it.
Whether patriarch or pope
We can only grope and hope.
Whether commoner or king,
Never sure of anything.

Life Begins At --

Life begins before you're one
When first you gaze upon the sun.
Life begins with book and rule
When first you toddle off to school.
Life begins at seventeen
When you behold a stunning queen.

Life begins at twenty-three -
You get your coveted degree.
Then life begins at twenty-four
Youe cease to be a bachelor.
And life begins at twenty-eight -
You enter the parental state.

Life begins at thirty-two -
You've found the job that suited you.
Life begins at forty-nine -
You're going strong and feeling fine.
Then life begins at sixty-five
And you retire much alive.

And then you reach three score and ten
To find that life begins again.
Life begins each morning bright
On waking from the dead of night.
Yes, life begins from day to day
As you go trudging on your way.

In 2008, California State University, Northridge produced an exhibition:

In our Own Backyard: Resisting Nazi Propaganda in Southern California, 1933-1945

[n.b. The exvibition documents are no longer online at Northridge, but have been preserved in the Internet archive]

This exhibition has a couple of images of him, as well as a number of documents relating to his activities with the America First and the Friend of Progress organizations and the sedition trial.

Adagios

The more the haste the less the speed.
A fried in need is a friend indeed.
Prevention ounce is pound of cure.
What can't be cured you must endure.
Always look before you leap.
Blessed is restoring sleep.
Naught but death the sinner's wage.
All the world is but a stage.
Dollars come from hoarded pence.
Get thee, Satan; Get the hence.
The exception proves the rule.
Experience is a bitter tool.

Adagios

Time invariably cures.
Change and change alone endures.
Easy come and easy go.
Always, son, hoe out your row.
No good comes from ill-won pelf.
Every doc should heal himself.
Dolts cannot be made to think.
Horses can't be made to drink.
Faint heart never won fair maid.
Winces, doth the galled jade.
One good turn another earns.
Long the lane that never turns.
Armed well, he whose cause is just.
Busy needles do not rust.
Words of wisdom such as those
Can be used in fighting foes.

Adagios

Fool and money soon are parted.
Victory's not for chicken-hearted.
Easy won is dearly bought.
Quickly learned is soon forgot.
Stick, O cobbler, to your last.
Things to come their shadows cast.
Save your breath to cool your broth.
Sacred is the plighted troth.
Ye shall garner as you sow.
Great oaks from small acorns grow.
Silver lines the darkest cloud.
Two is company - three's a crowd.
Making haste is making waste.
Do not argue over taste.
So say sages of the past.
Ponder well and hold them fast.

September 11, 1919

Adagios

All that glitters is not gold.
O joy when sheep are in the fold.
Smite the iron when it's hot.
The wish is father to the thought.
Early the bird that gets the worm.
Until you're hurt you should not squirm.
Do not kick against the bricks.
And never count the unhatched chicks.
Time and tide for no man wait.
Never is much worse than late.
Shed no tears about spilled milk.
Sows' ears can't make purse of silk.
Cross no bridge until it's reached
Always practice what you've preached.
These few saws and many another.
Should receive your homage brother.

September 11, 1919

Adagios

Halfway done that well is started.
Roads are short to cheery-hearted.
Pennies saved are pennies earned.
Fire frights the child that's burned.
You can't eat the cake that's eaten.
Faint of heart is quickly beaten.
You can't tell until you try.
No water's missed till well is dry.
There are no pockets in a shroud.
Falls are waiting for the proud.
No man lives by bread alone.
Every sinner must atone.
Silence if you'd evil speak.
He will not find who does not seek.
These are maxims tried and true.
And they all apply to you.

Adagios

Uneasy lies the head that's crowned.
It's love that makes the world go round.
A daily apple cheat's the doc.
Like-plumed together flock.
Dead men have no tales to tell.
It's worth doing, do it well.
Opportunity knocks but once.
Words are wasted on the dunce.
A stitch in time saves many a stitch.
Spoil the child and spare the switch.
Make your hay while sun is shining.
Waste no time in vain repining.
The chain is strong as the weakest link.
Evil to them who evil think.
Thus say sages through the ages.
Pasted 'em in your scrapbook pages.

What did he look like?

His papers include a small group of photographs

At the wedding of this nice young couple! Three generations of Ellis Oliver Jones'
June 1949, New Haven CT.
1949 was the date also of his 50th reunion of Yale Class of 1899, for which he wrote a poem.
there os also a photograph of the attending members of that class which will appear here in due course.

Unknown location and unknown date. Presumably the place he lived in Washington DC, and quite possibly the same day as the next on, taken at our house in McLean, Virginia about 1960.

There are other pictures of him here, and here.

Impatient Patricia

Patricia possessed a propensity
For showing a hyperintensity.
She avered: "I can't say
Why I struggle this way.
Perhaps it is due to my density."

Chronic

A husband from East Pennsylvania
Declared to his wive: "It is plain ya
Have nagged me so long
With your ceaseless sing-song
It's become an incurable mania."

Couldn't Make It

There once was a big Texas leaguer
Who wanted to be an intriguer,
But in spite of his pains
The sum of his gains
Was always excessively meager.

Slight Offhand

There was a bookkeeper named Jane
Who struggled for illicit gain,
So she juggled accounts
In substantial amounts
And called it mere legerdemain.

Illegal Beagle

There was a finagling beagle
That scented a real regal eagle.
When he got squared away
His owner yelled "Hey!
To inveigle an eagle's illegal."

The Cure Consumer: January 16, 1910

[Click below to enlarge. If it's still too small to read, click again]