Solidarité & Progrès Paris Conference

The Role of the Historical Individual

by Jose Vega

[Print version of this article]

The following is an edited version of the written remarks by Jose Vega delivered to Panel One of the Nov. 8-9 Schiller Institute-Solidarité & Progrès Paris conference, “The Emancipation of Africa and the World Majority, a Challenge for Europe.” Mr. Vega, a leader of the LaRouche Youth Movement, is currently running for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York’s 15th Congressional District (Bronx). Panel One was titled, “Responding to the Cry of the People.” The video is available here.

Good morning everyone, I want to thank you all for having this wonderful conference and for giving me an opportunity to share the stage with my colleagues here.

First of all, it’s always good to know that I come from a process not tied to one single country or people. Whether it’s in The Bronx, or Paris, Berlin, China, Mexico or South Africa, I’m proud that many countries from around the world are here, joining us today. It’s good to remember that I come from an international process that transcends borders. Ideas have allowed us to get to where we are now. Ideas are what is carrying us forward. This is something I’ve learned through my now single-decade-and-two-years of being associated with the LaRouche movement.

So here I am in France, a beautiful country that I had the pleasure of running around yesterday. I walked by the Louvre, and was reminded of the relationship between Samuel Morse and James Fenimore Cooper.

Before I get right into that, let me set the scene.

It’s the 1830s. The United States only has had its Constitution at that point for 50 years; the United States is a young country. Compare that to the contemporary countries at the time that are still being ruled by monarchies. And also, a responsibility that its citizenry ought to uphold the Republic. Some Americans knew this.

Thus enter Samuel Morse, who was an American inventor and painter, and his friend James Fenimore Cooper was a famous American author at the time, who wrote The Last of the Mohicans, which was in every Parisian bookstore by the time he arrived in Europe in 1826.

Samuel Morse and James Fenimore Cooper first met in Washington, D.C., in 1824, when the Marquis de Lafayette did his triumphant return from France and did a tour in the United States to aid John Quincy Adams in his election for the Presidency of the United States.

Morse and Cooper would go on to be friends and would travel Europe together. They both spent a lot of time in Paris. As Cooper would write his routine in his diary: “I get up at eight, read the papers, breakfast at ten, sit down to the quill at half past ten, work till one, throw off my morning gown, draw on my boots and gloves, take a cane … and go to the Louvre, where I find Morse stuck up on a high working stand, perch myself astraddle of one of the seats, and bore him.”

What is Cooper referring to? Well,

In November 1829, the 38-year-old American artist, Samuel F. B. Morse, set sail on a 3,000-mile, 26-day voyage from New York, bound for Paris. He intended to realize the ambition recorded on his passport: his occupation, Morse stated, was “historical painter.” … In Paris, Morse set himself a daunting challenge. By September 1831, visitors to the Louvre observed a curious sight in the high-ceilinged chambers. Perched on a tall, movable scaffold of his own contrivance, Morse was completing preliminary studies, outlining 38 paintings hung at various heights on the museum walls—landscapes, religious subjects and portraits, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, as well as works by masters including Titian, Veronese and Rubens. Working on a 6- by 9-foot canvas, Morse would execute an interior view of a chamber in the Louvre, a space containing his scaled-down survey of works from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Not even the threat of a cholera outbreak slowed his pace.

On October 6, 1832, Morse embarked for New York, his unfinished painting, Gallery of the Louvre, stowed securely below deck. The “splendid and valuable” work, he wrote to his brothers, was nearing completion. When Morse unveiled the result of his labors on August 9, 1833, in New York City, however, his hopes for achieving fame and fortune were dashed. The painting commanded only $1,300; he had set the asking price at $2,500.

Today, the newly restored work is on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. through July 8, 2012.[fn_1]

Amusing as this story is, there is another person who also spent time here in Paris. And that’s Edgar Poe. Edgar Poe was another famous author in the United States, contemporaneous with people like James Fenimore Cooper.

You may know the famous author, Alexander Dumas. Well, he wrote in his diary about his meeting he had with Edgar Poe. He writes:

It was about the year 1832. One day a young American presented himself at my house with an introduction from his fellow countryman, the famous novelist Fenimore Cooper. Needless to say, I welcomed him with open arms. His name was Edgar Poe. From the outset I realized that I had to deal with a remarkable man: two or three remarks which he made on my furniture, the things I had about me, the way my articles of everyday use were strewn about the room, and on my moral and intellectual characteristics, impressed me with their accuracy and truth. On the very first day of our acquaintance, I freely proffered him my friendship and asked for his. He must certainly have entertained for me a sympathy similar to that I felt for him, for he held out his hand to me and the understanding between us was instantaneous and complete. At this time, my mother’s ill health requiring that she should enjoy a purer air than that afforded by the more central parts of Paris—she was living in the Luxembourg district, while I had a little house all to myself in the Rue de l’Ouest. I offered to let Edgar Poe have two rooms in this house for the duration of his stay in Paris.

Now, why are these people here? Why are there Americans in Europe while the United States is still being formed? What is happening in the world? Well, all the people I mentioned did not view themselves as limited to a single time period, but understood their roles as historical individuals. They came to France, to get the best of the culture and the country, to bring back to this very young country. Because they understood they needed to build a culture and a society of the best of what every culture had to offer.

I think about that painting. How the original asking price was $2,500. But the worth of the painting (sold in 1982 for a record $3.2 million) is not monetary. It is a footprint of the alliance of Lafayette, Cooper, Samuel Morse, Washington Irving, Edgar Poe, and others, sometimes referred to as The Society of Cincinnatus.

And I’m inspired by this, because as I see the world now, I see the people in this room, I realize that we don’t need parties or factions, but a new School of Athens through which we can pull the best ideas of the past into dialogue with the new generations to revive the best in culture for today. This is what the Americans coming to Paris understood. And this is what I understand as well. And so, I hope to learn a lot in being here and learning from all of you, my fellow colleagues, who I am meeting for the first time, to take these ideas back to the United States as we build our international School of Athens. Thank you all.

Endnote

[fn_1] David McCullough, Smithsonian Magazine, Sept. 2011. [back to text from fn_1]