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Did Paul Harvey Invent the Urban Legend That Could?

Timothy NoahPosted Friday, July 7, 2000, at 6:26 PM ET

This week, four journalists recycled an urban legend telling the sorry fates of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Yesterday, Chatterbox examined the degree to which each was suckered by the tale and also the willingness each showed to identify as their source a phantom e-mail that, Chatterbox observed, had been "floating around for a decade on the Internet and on newspaper letters-to-the-editor pages." In fact, it's been floating around since before the Internet--and even Chatterbox--was born! James Elbrecht's bracingly thorough Signer's Index Web page follows the text upstream as far as 1956, when it appeared in a book by Chicago radio personality Paul Harvey entitled The Rest of the Story. (Harvey has since published several other books with that title; it's the name of one of his daily broadcasts.)

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According to Elbrecht, the How the Signers Suffered spiel contains a lot more errors than the ones Chatterbox previously identified. If Elbrecht is right--and he makes a convincing case that he's done his homework--Chatterbox didn't grade Ann Landers, Jeff Jacoby, and Jonah Goldberg harshly enough. (To read Elbrecht's critique, click here. Goldberg mostly fesses up--but also calls Chatterbox a "hall monitor"--in this "Fray" entry. And Jacoby kisses Elbrecht's ring in this e-mail to Jim Romenesko's Media News.)

Harvey initially titled his essay "We Mutually Pledge." Subsequently he republished it under the title "Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor." He even released a spoken-word recording of it. Although the phantom e-mail doesn't track Harvey's text word for word--actually, several variations of the phantom e-mail are in circulation--it is essentially the same. But did Harvey write it himself, or was he recycling an already-familiar Fourth of July peroration? (Harvey's usual historiography, after all, consists of tearing items off the AP wire.) Harvey, alas, had gone for the weekend when Chatterbox phoned his office.

Then there's the Rush Question. For years New York radio personality Rush Limbaugh III has attributed to his father, Rush Limbaugh Jr., authorship of a speech similarly titled "Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor." (He recently published it on his Web site.) A portion of this speech resembles the Harvey version and the more recent knockoffs. Here's a snippet:

Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. ... Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact.

As Chatterbox observed earlier, the "nine died of wounds" and "five were captured" factoids aren't correct. (To read Elbrecht's dissection of the Limbaugh version, click here.) The larger question, though, is: Does Daddy Rush's speech predate Harvey's 1956 essay? That wouldn't establish him as the original author of the urban legend, of course. Still, Chatterbox will try to find out.

[Correction, July 14: In asserting that the "five were captured" factoid is incorrect, Chatterbox abbreviated to the point of being incorrect himself. What the earlier item said, and what Chatterbox should have repeated in full here, is that it's untrue that five were captured and tortured (a false claim in the phantom e-mail and also in Daddy Rush's text--torture surely being what Daddy Rush meant when he referred to "brutal treatment"). Five signers were indeed captured, as is pointed out in a dyspeptic article in Suck that excoriates Chatterbox for making this error and, in general, for being "the hobgoblin of little minds." But, to clarify once more: These five signers were not tortured.]

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.

COMMENTS

Reader Response from The Fray:

I had rather thought that this issue, that of journalists delving into history, had been dealt with fairly thoroughly over the past few months. As it appears that it has not I see no harm in adding my two cents. I teach military history here at the United States Military Academy. I am the same Robert Bateman recently identified by the New York Times and the Washington Post in relation to another problem with journalistic sources and process as they relate to history. A few months ago the AP won a Pulitzer for the story of No Gun Ri in which they used journalistic techniques to "develop" the story of the events at No Gun Ri. My historical research (archival and oral history combined) revealed that of the five American "voices" in their original article that seemed to confirm that American troops had killed hundreds of South Koreans under orders in the opening days of that war, three of them were not even there. The stories of the other two, well, read the base AP article again for yourself and see the contextual implications in their story.

That, sir, is the difference between history and journalism. One does not need to over-analyze this too much. Suffice it to note that despite the fact that more than 50% of the AP sources about the order to fire, including their central witness, Mr Ed Daily, were found to be fabrications, they have not been asked to return the Pulitzer. A historian committing the same faux pas would lose all credibility. I am not saying that one is better than the other, I am pointing out that the standards are somewhat higher, (or if you prefer, merely different) for one than the other. You are right, of course, in your analogy to the Civil War. But I might suggest that responsible journalism demands that if you state "Battle X had this number on one side and that number on the other" you might serve the public and posterity better if you include the journalistic equivalent of the footnote, that is, attribution. "According to author ____" or "Professor Backsight Forethought" or whatever your source for that fact may be.

I will not weigh in on the use of the e-mail itself. I will merely point out that in this day and age of the internet, with Universities and their faculties a mere mouse click away, it is not a good idea to rely upon Lexus-Nexis as the definitive source for anything historically related. It is, in my professional opinion, a bad idea.

--Major Robert Bateman

(To reply, click here.)

Congratulations, Mr Noah, on your tremendous effort in putting to rest the large question of the validity of this urban legend. We can all sleep much easier knowing that folks like you are doing their journalistic duty to protect us from such falsifications. God only knows how much harm might have been done to innocent net and newspaper readers if we didn't have this story debunked by the likes of you. We can only imagine what horrors could arise from stories of valor and honor being put upon our nation. Job well done, sir. Those of us in flyover country eagerly await your next challenge--perhaps the Pledge of Allegiance or the National Anthem could use a little looking into?

--Steve

(To reply, click here.)

[Storm replied: Are you saying lying and misrepresenting the facts is OK if it is done in a patriotic fashion?]

(7/10)

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