Jerry Summers
Since the 100th Anniversary of the Scopes Trial in Dayton has ended in 2025 and our next demand performance is not scheduled until 2125 it is time to schedule a new series of articles in our continuing campaign to “win friends and influence people.”
I recently was given a hard copy of the 263 page collection of articles that were published in the Chattanooga News newspaper during the 1912-1915 era that are still relevant in 2025.
The selected columns were presented by Sam Divine to late publisher Roy McDonald and reporter John Wilson (sound familiar) by Divine’s son Thomas McCallie Divine and published in 1986.
It contains “a lively look at Chattanooga from its earliest days to 1915” and included many compliments, criticisms and statements in conformity with the age old cliché that “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,” in the 2025 period as described in the earlier versions.
Permission has been granted to repeat (or paraphrase) Sam Divine’s wisdom in the Memories subsection of Chattanoogan.com.
If he could get by with some of his direct opinions as to local conditions, events and individuals, it is the goal of the column to accomplish the same.
(Any favorable or critical comments are solicited.
HL Mencken (HL) and Sam Divine may be good role models for the new column? However any reference to HL’s often applicable barbs about political and public issues should not be considered as acceptance of his agnostic/atheist beliefs!)