Novelist describes America as complex country with aversion to history

This Week In National Press Club History: Dec. 10, 1986: James Baldwin, novelist, essayist, playwright, poet and social critic, addresses a Press Club Luncheon. Describing himself as the grandson of a slave and an American citizen with a sometimes stormy life, he argues America is a very complex country that has an aversion to history, and regrettably regards simplicity and immaturity as virtues.

Dec. 12, 1912: The NPC holds its first burlesque debate: “That bow-legs are a greater menace to navigation than knock-knees.” The Club’s 50th anniversary history, Shrdlu, later describes the event as juvenile,but of interest because of the character of the participants. On the bow-leg team were William Selzer, representative from New York and later governor, and James M. Cox, governor of Ohio and later the 1920 Democratic candidate for president. On the knock-kneed team were Thomas P. Gore, the blind Senator from Oklahoma, and the controversial Boies Penrose, senator from Pennsylvania.

This Week In National Press Club History is brought to you by the History & Heritage Committee, which preserves and revitalizes the Club’s century-old history with lobby displays, events, panel discussions, and an on-going oral-history project, which now includes more than 200 interviews with key Club personnel and staff.