May 25, 1955: "Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier" Premieres

May 25, 1955: Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier premieres, produced by Walt Disney Productions. It is an edited and recut compilation of the 1st 3 episodes of the TV series Davy Crockett, which aired on ABC from December 15, 1954, to December 14, 1955.

The story is pure baloney. For starters, while David Crockett was a real person, and a hero of the War of 1812 and the concurrent Creek War against Native American tribes in the South, most of the stories about him, including the ones he himself told, were exaggerations. He was the Chuck Norris of his time. Also, he never called himself "Davy" or "Davey," only "David."

David Crockett

He served in the Tennessee General Assembly from 1821 to 1825, and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1826 and 1828, defeated in 1830, won again in 1832, but lost again in 1834, in part due to his opposition to the one man in Tennessee more popular than he was: President Andrew Jackson. He headed out to Texas, and died at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, at the age of 49.

Fess Parker played Crockett in the series and in the film. At the very least, they got his clothes right, showing him wearing buckskins and a coonskin cap. That cap became ubiquitous: Because of its association with Disney and TV, every boy had to have one.

The caps were written into The Honeymooners, as Jackie Gleason's Brooklyn bus driver Ralph Kramden and Art Carney's sewer worker Ed Norton were members of a lodge, the Friendly Order of Raccoons, wearing "Admiral Dewey" jackets and coonskin caps. "The Friendly Raccoon Hello" and "the Friendly Raccoon Goodbye" consisted of lifting the tail on the back of the cap and going, "Whoo!" In one episode, where Ralph finds out that his wife, Alice (Audrey Meadows) is making side money babysitting, the kid she's sitting comes out, sees Ralph in his lodge uniform, and says, "I didn't know Davy Crockett was so fat!"

Even Tennessee's present-day Senator, Estes Kefauver, with designs on the Presidency for 1956, was seen in public wearing a coonskin cap. It didn't help, although he was nominated for Vice President by the Democrats, under Adlai Stevenson, but the ticket lost. Kefauver's cap didn't help: By the time of the election, the fad was over.

The film and show proved so popular that the theme song that had been written by George Bruns (not "Burns") and Thomas W. Blackburn was covered by multiple performers. Bill Hayes recorded one that hit Number 1 in the Spring of 1955. Even Fess Parker recorded a version, and had a minor hit with it.

From 1964 to 1970, Parker returned to the early American West, starring in the NBC series Daniel Boone. This series was no closer to the historical figure it portrayed: Basically, it was Parker reprising his Crockett character. The real Boone (1734-1820) never wore a coonskin cap. It is possible that Boone and Crockett could have met, but no such meeting was ever recorded. Parker lived until 2010.

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May 25, 1955 was a Wednesday. Actress Connie Sellecca was born on this day.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 6-2 at Yankee Stadium. Bob Turley went the distance for the win. Yogi Berra hit a home run, and Mickey Mantle went 1-for-4.

* The New York Giants were swept in a doubleheader by the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-3 and 5-2 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Willie Mays went 3-for-7 with a home run, a walk and an RBI over the 2 games.

* A doubleheader was split at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. The Baltimore Orioles won the opener, 6-2. The Boston Red Sox won the nightcap, 5-2. Ted Williams was injured, and did not make his season debut until May 28.

* The Chicago Cubs swept a doubleheader from their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 1-0 and 3-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Paul Minner pitched a 4-hit shutout in the 1st game. Over the 2 games, Ernie Banks went 2-for-5 with 2 walks, while Stan Musial went 2-for-7 with a walk.

* The Cincinnati Redlegs (as the Reds were known from 1954 to 1958) beat the Milwaukee Braves, 13-2 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Hank Aaron went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Kansas City Athletics, 8-2 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Al Kaline went 2-for-5 with a walk and an RBI, on his way to becoming the American League's youngest batting champion.

* The Chicago White Sox and the Cleveland Indians were rained out at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. The Pale Hose won the 1st game, 3-1. The Tribe won the 2nd game, 10-9.

* And the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Pittsburgh Pirates were rained out at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on July 6. The Dodgers won the 1st game, 10-5. Carl Erskine outpitched Roy Face, who would be converted into one of the game's top relief pitchers. Sandy Amoros hit a home run.

The Pirates won the 2nd game, 4-1. Vern Law went the distance for the win. Sandy Koufax made only his 3rd major league appearance, starting the game pitching into the 5th inning, although it would be Ed Roebuck who was the losing pitcher. Over the 2 games, Roberto Clemente went 2-for-9 with a walk. Jackie Robinson did not play in either game.

March 12, 1956: The Southern Manifesto

Southern Senators, led by Strom Thurmond of South Carolina

March 12, 1956: The Declaration of Constitutional Principles is signed, by 19 members of the U.S. Senate and 82 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, all from States that had been in the Confederate States of America.

Since there was not a goddamned thing about it that was constitutional, it became known as the Southern Manifesto, allowing people on the right side of the struggle for civil rights to do what these rednecks had been doing to them for years: Comparing them to Communists.

The main author was Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. In 1948, as his State's Governor, he had briefly left the Democratic Party to run as the nominee for President of the States' Rights Party. From that point onward, Southern Democrats who opposed civil rights were known as "Dixiecrats."

It was written in response to the unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, 2 years earlier, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, declaring that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

The Declaration included these words: "The unwarranted decision of the Supreme Court in the public school cases is now bearing the fruit always produced when men substitute naked power for established law."

This was a bald-faced lie: The decision was warranted, and it was a strike against naked power, in the form of "Jim Crow" laws that overturned established law.

It also said: "The original Constitution does not mention education. Neither does the 14th Amendment nor any other amendment. The debates preceding the submission of the 14th Amendment clearly show that there was no intent that it should affect the system of education maintained by the States."

This was true, but it covered up the text of the 14th Amendment: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This is known as the Equal Protection Clause.

It also said: "This unwarranted exercise of power by the Court, contrary to the Constitution, is creating chaos and confusion in the States principally affected. It is destroying the amicable relations between the white and Negro races that have been created through 90 years of patient effort by the good people of both races. It has planted hatred and suspicion where there has been heretofore friendship and understanding."

This was a lie: There had not been friendship. And the Court's decision didn't create confusion; it clarified the law.

Three Democratic Senators from Southern States did not sign: Albert Gore and Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, and the Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson of Texas. In the House, 16 of 21 Democrats from Texas refused to sign it, including the Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn, and a future Speaker, Jim Wright. Also refusing to sign were 3 of the 11 Democrats from North Carolina; and 1 of the 7 from Florida, Dante Fascell.

The following year, Thurmond launched the longest filibuster the Senate had yet seen, in a vain attempt to stop the Civil Rights Act of 1957. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, he became the 1st Dixiecrat to switch to the Republican Party. There would be many more.

Thurmond turned out to be the last-serving member who signed the Southern Manifesto, serving until 2003, shortly after his 100th birthday, and dying a few months later. The last surviving signer was Richard Poff of Virginia, who died in 2011.

The last-serving member who refused to sign was Jack Brooks of Texas, who served until 1994. The last surviving refuser was the aforementioned Jim Wright, who died in 2015.

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March 12, 1956 was a Monday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. No games were scheduled for the NHL. There was 1 game played in the NBA: The Syracuse Nationals beat the St. Louis Hawks, 97-92 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

March 11, 1952: The New Hampshire Primary Matters for the 1st Time

Estes Kefauver

March 11, 1952: For the 1st time, the New Hampshire Primary ends up making a difference.

On the Democratic side, President Harry S Truman hadn't even bothered to campaign, because he'd already decided, but hadn't yet announced, that he wasn’t running for what would have amounted to a 3rd term. He said if he'd run again, "Bess would have impeached me," meaning his wife.

Still, it is a shock that Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee – a Southern State – got 55 percent of the vote, to Truman getting 44 percent as a write-in candidate. Kefauver had become famous while chairing a Senate Committee on organized crime, with its hearings televised. And yet, he did not end up with the nomination. Despite his getting the Vice Presidential nomination in 1956, the 1952 New Hampshire Primary will be the high-water mark of his career.

On the Republican side, the election is won by an unannounced candidate. Retired U.S. Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower gets 56 percent. Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, son of a President and the nation's leading active conservative icon, to the point where his nickname was Mr. Republican, only gets 31 percent.

Former Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota, a holdover candidate from 1948, got just 8 percent, and he never got so close to the Presidency again, despite running again and again until 1992, becoming a national joke. Both Eisenhower and Stassen were then Presidents of Ivy League universities: "Ike" of Columbia in New York, and Stassen of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Forcibly retired General Douglas MacArthur figured that all he had to do was get write-in votes in the Primaries, and a swell of support at the Republican Convention would "draft" him, and he would become the 34th President of the United States. He got 4 percent of the Republican vote in the New Hampshire Primary, and ended up losing the nomination and the White House to Ike, whom he once derisively called "the best clerk I ever had," but who had surpassed him in the public imagination.

This was the 1st time that New Hampshire, with its Winter tableaus, its hatred of taxes of all kinds, and its "retail politics," had seemingly changed the course of a Presidential election. It has saved eventual nominees: Republicans Ronald Reagan in 1980, George H.W. Bush in 1988, John McCain in 2008, and Mitt Romney in 2012; and Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992.

It has given hope to insurgent candidates that ended up not winning: Democrats Kefauver, Eugene McCarthy in 1968, and Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020; Republicans Henry Cabot Lodge in 1964, Pat Buchanan in 1992 and 1996, and McCain in 2000. And, in 1972, it ruined a front-runner: Democrat Ed Muskie.

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March 11, 1952 was a Tuesday. Douglas Adams, writer of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books, was born.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 2 games in the NBA. The Boston Celtics beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 88-84 at the Philadelphia Arena. And the Rochester Royals beat the Indianapolis Olympians, 82-81 at the Butler Fieldhouse (now the Hinkle Fieldhouse) in Indianapolis.

And there was 1 game in the NHL: The Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 at the Boston Garden.