Click for Radio Podcast: Ben Franklin Is Not a Tea Party Candidate from Oklahoma (5:52)
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Transcript:
I never thought of him as a comedian until I came across a bit of history a few months ago. Then, a Tea Party candidate in Oklahoma again reminded me of Benjamin Franklin last week.
I have admired Ben Franklin ever since some bit of idle curiosity got me reading about him before I got to High School. It may have been the epitaph he wrote for himself when he had barely passed through his teenage years, likening his life to the yellowed pages of an old book. The prospect of “a new & more perfect Edition” made me think of reincarnation. His lifelong opposition to slavery came next, I’d guess. That was rare in colonial days.
It may have been his dedication to knowledge, education, science, that cemented my admiration. With Jefferson ruled out in my mind as a slaveholder, Benjamin Franklin was the last remnant of the Renaissance.
It was that dedication to knowledge that got him involved in publishing an almanac. It also accounted for a public feud and a practical joke that lasted for several years.
Titan Leeds was an astrologer. He published an almanac based on the stars to guide farmers in planting and harvesting and to guide everyone else in their personal lives. He was a religious bigot, campaigning against Quakers. He also focused on a strange sort of philosophy speculating on the material makeup of the human soul: so many parts fire, so many parts light, all mixed in with a substance called “tincture.”
Leeds mocked education, expressing contempt for scholars and doctors.
The very existence of Titan Leeds seemed to offend Ben Franklin. Leeds’ astrological predictions and his diatribes against education inspired Franklin to publish his own almanac. Franklin called his publication “Poor Richard’s Almanack”, and invented a protagonist, Richard Saunders. Leeds and Franklin began writing against each other right away. Franklin frequently invented a mock friendship, “sadly” taking his “old friend” apart.
Finally, Franklin used Leeds’ own astrology against him. He published a sort of joke about it, predicting that, when the Sun and Mercury lined up, his “old friend” would die.
He dies by my calculation made at his request, on October 17, 1733, 3:29pm at the very conjunction of the Sun and Mercury; by his own calculation he will survive until the 26th. This small difference between us we have disputed whenever we met these nine years past.
– Benjamin Franklin (Richard Saunders), December 28, 1732
In fact, Ben Franklin insisted he never would have gone into publishing except for the impending death of Titan Leeds, since he would not have wanted to compete with his longtime friend.
Leeds had no matching humor. When the projected day came and went, he proclaimed that his rival was a fraud: “he has usurpt the knowledge of the Almighty herein and manifested himself a Fool and a Lyar…”
Benjamin Franklin cheerfully acknowledged the response. Since Leeds was his close personal friend, and there was nothing but fondness and good will between them, the bitter words from Titan Leeds was proof:
Leeds had indeed died, and his good name had been taken up by one or more impostors.
Leeds, of course, sputtered an indignant denial. He was the real Leeds, alive and well, and his opponent was simply offering more lies.
With each exchange, Franklin would express sadness that his friend’s name was being so abused and his reputation so sullied by the group of impostors now pretending to be Titan Leeds. The proof was in the writing itself. Leeds had been so fond of him, and so kindly, that he would never have produced such vitriol.
The contrast between Benjamin Franklin’s clever needling and Titan Leeds’ humorless responding diatribes made the feud more entertaining. This went on for five years, to the amusement of readers in Philadelphia and beyond.
It didn’t even stop when Leeds really did die a few years later. Franklin congratulated the impostors for finally realizing the error of their ways and ending their evil masquerade.
Benjamin Franklin came to mind as I read of a Tea Party candidate for Congress from Oklahoma who lost a primary election to a long time Republican office holder. The Tea Party candidate, Timothy Murray, got 5 percent of the vote, but insists he actually won, because the incumbent, Congressional Representative Frank Lucas, is ineligible to hold office by virtue of being dead: “it is widely known Rep. Frank D. Lucas is no longer alive and has been displayed by a look alike.”
The allegation is that Lucas was executed in the Ukraine in 2011 by the World Court. He was replaced by a robotic double.
Well, that is a step beyond the stuff about a President having been born in Kenya, I suppose.
At first I thought it must be satire. It does seem fit for the Onion.
You can go to the website of the Tea Party fellow.
Lucas, or his replica, responds:
Many things have been said about me, said to me during course of my campaigns. This is the first time I’ve ever been accused of being a body double or a robot.
– Frank Lucas (R-OK), June 26, 2014
I don’t know that Benjamin Franklin ever actually believed in reincarnation. Even if he has come back, Ben Franklin can’t be this Tea Party fellow.
For one thing, Ben was funnier.