Good morning, it's Friday, Jan. 13 -- yes, Friday the 13th -- a day of supposedly problematic karma, as well as the day of the week when I pass along quotations intended to be uplifting or thought-provoking. Today's words of wisdom come from Robert Latham Owen, Oklahoma's first U.S. senator, and a man who literally laughed at the idea that Friday the 13th was bad luck.
Bad luck for the 13th day of the month, provided it falls on a Friday, is a melding of two old superstitions: That 13 is an unlucky number; and that Friday is an unlucky day.
University of Delaware professor Thomas Fernsler, affectionately known as "Dr. 13," says the number gets bad press because it follows 12, which numerologists consider a "complete" number. Disparate societies over the millennia produced 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Mount Olympus, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Christ. In the Christian tradition, the 13th person to sit at the Last Supper, Judas Iscariot, betrayed Jesus.
Friday has also long been considered in the folktales of many cultures to be the wrong day to begin a venture: to lay the keel of a new boat, harvest a crop, begin a long journey, (or start a presidency?). At some point in the 20th century, these two superstitions merged.
Not everyone subscribed to these phobias, a notable exception being a turn-of-the-century U.S. senator and onetime Democratic presidential candidate -- the aforementioned Robert L. Owen. On March 13, 1908 -- a Friday -- he sponsored 13 bills in Congress. "Friday the 13th holds no terrors for Senator Owen," reported the New York Times. "The senator from Oklahoma is a Cherokee Indian, and he places the Indian sign on the ancient superstition."
Actually, Robert Owen's ethnic heritage was not so easily defined. Born in Virginia prior to the Civil War, he attended Washington and Lee University before heading out West to what was then the territory of Oklahoma, where he practiced law and represented what were then called the "Five Civilized Tribes" of the Cherokee Nation. His mother, Narcissa, claimed some Cherokee blood, but not much. Tracing her own family tree, she deduced she was one-sixteenth Cherokee, although the editor of her memoirs thinks she might have skipped a generation or two. This suggests that Robert Owen was perhaps one-sixty-fourth Cherokee. That was close enough for the newspapers of the day and for the Cherokee Nation elders, who recognized Owen as one of their own. But Robert Owen was more interesting than his bloodlines.
He taught at the Cherokee Orphan Asylum, served as secretary of the board of education of the Cherokee Nation, published the "Indian Chieftain" newspaper, and founded and ran the First National Bank of Muskogee. In the 1890s, he became a member of the Democratic National Committee, a position he used to advocate on behalf of Indian rights.
Entering elective politics as a progressive Democrat, he championed Prohibition, women's suffrage, and child labor laws. Although as an Oklahoma senator Owen protected the oil industry and other local interests, he made his national reputation railing against special interest politics. He favored numerous reforms pushed by the fledgling Progressive movement, including direct election of senators, the referendum system adopted by Oregon, California, and Wisconsin – and pushed for a cabinet level federal health department a half-century before it came into being.
On May 13, 1910, he delivered a stemwinder on the Senate floor that so impressed William Jennings Bryan that the famous populist had it reprinted in his magazine "Commoner."
In that speech, Sen. Owen explained how the will of the voters is routinely subverted by special interests and machine politics. He then posed a question that is still being asked in the halls of Congress -- by lawmakers of good intent and posturing rogues alike. It remains an important one. "If the people really rule," he asked, "why don't the people get what they want?"
And that's our quote of the week.
