Witness to War -- Episode Two

"War not only creates a supply of news, but a demand for it"

- Anonymous editor

EPISODE TWO: 

The Golden Age

Prelude to World War I

    

            The telegraph and the increase of literacy during the period between the American Civil War and World War I launched "The Golden Age" of the press baron and war reporting.

            Newspaper reading was spurred by the massive population growth in the US and compulsory education in the UK.

            The number of British newspapers quickly doubled after the Education Acts of the 1870's, and existing papers saw their circulation shoot up.

            Editors in both countries noticed that reports of battles brought increased circulation, so they covered the Franco-Prussian War, the Sudan, Turkey, Khartoum, Serbia and China. 

            When there wasn't a war to report, they weren't averse to helping start one.

            When the American battleship Maine blew up in Havana's harbor, Spain insisted that it was an accident.  But publisher William Randolph Hearst saw an opportunity, and under a banner headline of "Remember the Maine," he whipped the American public into a frenzy.

            Richard Harding Davis, Hearst's star reporter, was sent off to Cuba and quickly became the quintessential war correspondent.

            Davis would make his name covering the Spanish American War with breathtaking accounts of Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain.  But when he first arrived, nothing was happening.  Hearst told him to file stories anyway.  Davis wrote vivid accounts about landings of troops, bombardments and fleet battles -- all totally false.  Not to be outdone, other papers rewrote the Davis accounts.

            While Hearst and his newspaper reporters got their war, a new medium was emerging -- film.

            Theodore Roosevelt recognized the publicity value of this new medium.  In 1898, the Vitagraph company's cameraman filmed the now famous Roosevelt charge up San Juan Hill.   Actually, it was staged on a nearby bump on the landscape, Kettle Hill.   Roosevelt cooperated by striking photogenic poses as the camera crew filmed the "charge.''   However, the footage didn't come close to the excitement of the written accounts.  So producers decided to add some footage of a naval battle that they staged in a bathtub, complete with miniature cardboard ships. 

            Meanwhile, the British were actively filming their own versions of wars using similar techniques.

            In 1898, a producer used a suburban London back yard to film an attack on a British mission in China, and a golf course became a Boer War battleground in South Africa.

            Fakery paid.  The public's appetite for war was insatiable.

            The tragedy of the Golden Age was that few questioned the methods or the deceit.  But the military, stung by the occasional derisive report, began to censor the reporters' stories.

            Censorship went unchallenged, and the lack of serious, hard reporting let pass unnoticed a critical reality that occurred in South Africa during the Boer War: trench warfare did not work.  The lesson remained a secret until the slaughter of millions in World War I.  

Witness to War - Episode One

 

"Telegraph fully all news you can get and when there is no news, send rumors."

- Wilbur Storey, Chicago Times

EPISODE  ONE:

Dispatch From Danger

The Crimean War to the Civil War

            The first episode tells of the creation of the war correspondent through the story of a now obscure Irish journalist, William Howard Russell, who was sent to cover the Crimean War for the Times of London.

            Russell's account of the 1854 war spawned the poem the "Charge of The Light Brigade'' and gave newspaper readers the first glimpse of what life was like on the battlefield.

            He became overwhelmed by the plight of the troops, and reported how officers arrived at the front with French chefs, servants, good wine, their hunting dogs and shotguns, with some even bringing their wives, while wounded troops didn't have beds to lie upon.

            At the same time, the discipline was so strict that soldiers were flogged for having their top buttons undone.  Russell was shocked but didn't know if he should, "tell these things or hold my tongue."  

            He decided to report what he saw, and his stories began to reflect the despicable conditions imposed on the soldiers and the deficiencies of command.  The official outrage this engendered was not directed at the military, but at Russell. Prince Albert , the husband of Queen Victoria, launched a counter-propaganda effort to discredit "that miserable scribbler," as he called Russell. 

 

            Public support began to sag, and the government found it hard to convince mothers to send their boys into the breach.

            To counteract  Russell, the British government enlisted the support of an young nurse, Florence Nightingale, and shipped her to Crimea with a corps of well-scrubbed helpers and a photographer to record dashing officers, sanitized battlefields, and happy troops to show the public that everything was fine.

            But with Crimea the war correspondent had arrived.  When the American Civil War broke out five years later, Russell went to America and was joined by more than 500 other correspondents on the Northern side alone. Among them was  Matthew Brady, who left one of richest collections of war photographs ever assembled, though printing photographs in daily newspapers was still a generation away.

            After studying the slave market, Russell was disgusted with the South and firmly in the North's camp.  He minced no words, however, and his reporting of the Northern rout at Bull Run angered the Union Army and led to his banishment from later battles.

            The Civil War firmly secured the existence of the war correspondent.

            As Russell put it, "a luckless tribe was born."

            The names that would follow him include:  Rudyard Kipling, Stephen Crane, Winston Churchill, H. G. Wells,  Arthur Conan Doyle, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Andre Malraux, George Orwell, John Reed, Lowell Thomas, Evelyn Waugh, John Steinbeck, Erskine Caldwell, Edgar Snow, Edward R. Murrow, William Shirer, Walter Cronkite, and Irwin Shaw.

Witness To War -- Overview

Witness to War

A seven part series of one-hour programs about

the historic role of War Reporting

 

            Their dispatches have whipped up patriotic fervor, brought down governments, stopped wars, and soothed worried mothers. Their exploits have made best selling memoirs, reshaped history, and spawned epic films.

            From William Howard Russell in Crimea to Matthew Brady at Bull Run, and Ernie Pyle at Monte Casino to Peter Arnett in Baghdad, the war correspondent has always been a mythical, courageous figure who shines the light where the military censors demand darkness.

            But the behavior of the press in wartime has not always been that simple or even admirable.

            Many war correspondents have come away from the front tarnished by their failings, wounded by their capitulations to the military, and pummeled by the irreconcilable and diametrically opposed purposes and missions of the press and the military.

            The role of the press has always been to disclose, while that of the military is unencumbered secrecy in order to surprise its enemy and win.

            But armies have also used secrecy and censorship to cover up the incompetence of commanders, miscalculations that led to failed missions, pillage, murder and erroneous intelligence that caused catastrophic foreign policy decisions.

            The press has been just as heavy-handed.

            In one classic example, newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst bullied Congress into starting the Spanish American War largely to fill his papers with sensational exclusive stories, and outsell his rival, Joseph Pulitzer.

            Sculptor and artist Frederic Remington, whom Hearst hired to sketch the war for the New York Journal, wired from Cuba: "EVERYTHING IS QUIET.  THERE IS NO TROUBLE HERE.  THERE WILL BE NO WAR.  I WISH TO RETURN."  Hearst cabled back: "PLEASE REMAIN.  YOU FURNISH PICTURES.  I WILL FURNISH WAR."

            Hearst got his war, and he and other newspapers owners grew rich as readers snapped up copies with the latest news from the front.  As their editors pushed for more war news to feed the public, the inherent conflict between the reporters and the military was often rubbed raw.

            "Witness to War" probes the development of this struggle.  We will see the images of war, from Matthew Brady's Civil War photographs to today's live satellite reports beamed from the front and hear the accounts of the battles written by some of the world's most famous correspondents and authors.

            We will come to know these fascinating war correspondents by bringing their dispatches to life as we explore this no-man's land "between the bullet and the lie" as George Orwell described it, where truth is the first casualty. 

Bone Wars – The Dinosaur Hunters

This is a proposal to produce a documentary about a story I stumbled on while shooting a travel show in Wyoming.  It's a great piece of history.

Bone Wars

This is a story of real skull-duggery.  It’s about the two most prominent paleontologists of the 19^th century and their monomaniacal, competitive pursuit of the glory to be found by uncovering the most sensational, new species of dinosaurs. 

It’s a story of adventure tempered by bribery, theft, politics, incursions into Indian territories, virulent personal attacks and ultimately the discoveries of Edward Drinker Cope and his rival Othniel Charles Marsh that changed our understanding of the world we live in.

Working with modern day dinosaur hunter and renowned paleontologist, Robert Bakker, Ph.D, we will go back to the scene of the crime, Como Bluff, near Medicine Bow, Wyoming.  Dr. Bakker will kick off our story at the site where the great dinosaur craze was born over one hundred years ago, when the first large bones were found by two bored railroad agents.  Word of this find soon made it to Cope and Marsh and their fevered quest began.

Their tireless collecting increased the knowledge of dinosaur species from 18 to over 130 as they unearthed previously unknown creatures such as Stegosaurus and Triceratops. Their pursuit of bones led them from the rich bone beds in Wyoming to Colorado, Nebraska, and New Mexico.

Marsh’s work bolstered Darwin’s case for evolution and he became friends with both Darwin and Darwin’s chief defender, Thomas Henry Huxley.  Marsh added his own theories to the mix, proposing that birds were descended from dinosaurs.  Today, because of our guide, Robert Bakker, this is the most widely accepted theory of the origin of birds. 

Cope was a brilliant interpreter of fossils who endured numerous hardships and even personal danger in his pursuit of fossils in the American West. But he was also an extremely arrogant, abrasive and combative individual who managed to alienate many of his colleagues. He was a prodigious researcher who published more than 1400 papers and monographs on paleontology and other areas of natural history.

From 1877 to 1892, both paleontologists used their wealth and influence to finance their own expeditions and to procure services and fossils from dinosaur hunters.  Their spirited scientific shenanigans would end with their collections housed in most of the world’s largest museums with each embraced by their benefactor institutions; Marsh’s at the Peabody Museum and the Smithsonian while Cope’s was enshrined at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.

By the end of the Bone Wars, Cope and Marsh were financially and socially ruined by their efforts to disgrace each other, but their contributions to science and the field of paleontology were massive; the scientists left behind tons of unopened boxes of fossils on their deaths. The feud between the two men led to over 142 new species of dinosaurs being discovered and described. The products of the Bone Wars resulted in an increase in knowledge of ancient life, and sparked the public's interest in dinosaurs, leading to continued fossil excavation in North America and around the world.

Our film will bring these two towering figures of science to life as we take the viewers on a journey into deep time.

Marsh’s Collections at the Smithsonian:

The Smithsonian’s largest collection of historical scientific illustrations consists of approximately 1250 drawings prepared under the direction of Othniel Charles Marsh in the late 19th century. Most were drawn by the artist, Frederick Berger. This collection includes preliminary sketches for drawings, carefully rendered ink wash illustrations of skulls and post-cranial material, large skeletal reconstructions of dinosaurs and extinct mammals, transfer drawings for stone lithographic printing, and the final printed unbound lithographs made from the ink wash drawings. The size of the individual pieces in the collection range from approximately 3 cm (less than 2 inches) to 183 cm (almost 6 feet) in width.

Marsh’s dinosaurs form the core of the dinosaur exhibition and research collections at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). The mounts of Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus and Triceratops on display in the NMNH dinosaur hall are just a few of the dinosaurs collected by O.C. Marsh’s team for the United States National Museum (now NMNH).

While Marsh’s main position was professor of paleontology at Yale University, he was also appointed United States Paleontologist for the U. S. Geological Survey from 1882-1892, and became Honorary Curator of the Department of Vertebrate Fossils at the United States National Museum in 1882. He held that position until his death in 1899.

Marsh was asked by then secretary of the Smithsonian, Spencer Baird, to collect vertebrate fossils for the Smithsonian Institution. It was Baird’s mission to build a collection of natural history objects for the U. S. National Museum. Baird contacted the best scientists he could find in the various natural sciences to fulfill his goal.

Marsh’s expeditions were funded by Yale University and by the U.S. Geological Survey. The vertebrate fossils collected by Marsh’s field crew were shipped from his field locality to his research laboratory at Yale University for study and publication. Collections funded by the U.S. Geological Survey were later transferred from Yale University to the U.S. National Museum and deposited into the collection as required by the 1879 Sundry Civil Act of Congress.

The Enchantress

This is the tease I wrote for a film inspired by a little known Robert Louis Stevenson story that combined with some of his travel writing parallels his life.

The Enchantress

            Sparkling water, grand chateaus, the royalty of Europe is at play.  Yachts, champagne, artists and casinos mix in the sumptuous pleasure capital of the Riviera, Monaco.

            Turn of the century France is a Mecca for those looking to throw off Victorian conventions.  There are enough counts, countesses and contessas to turn a blood bank blue.

            It's heaven on earth -- if you have the money.  Edward Hatfield, thirty years old, has always had the money but recently his luck at the tables has gone bad.  A handsome fellow, good manners, good education but now without a penny to his name, he is facing an unknown future.

            As he contemplates, robbery, suicide, begging or God knows what, a woman, Emmeline Croft, makes him an offer.

            Croft is a rich young, British heiress who has been told that she cannot have control of her inheritance until she is married.  She doesn't want to marry, she wants to be free.

            The executor of her trust, Hussey Ramley, is an unsavory sort, who has swindled a number of powerful people.  Not only has he bilked them out of their money he's lost it gambling.  He doesn't want her to marry.  He wants to control her money and use it to pay back his creditors by investing in their businesses.  He also wants the fees for managing the loot.

            On holiday in the south of France, Emeline learns of Hatfield's predicament.  She decides to solve his problem and her own.

            She lures him back to England with an offer to set him up for life with an income.  Hatfield sees a meal ticket and way to keep at his gambling ways with the insurance of a steady source of funds.  He's been rescued.

            He follows her to England and there she reveals her plan.  Her solicitor, Thomas Venable, has drawn up a contract for marriage. 

            In exchange for marrying Ms. Croft, Hatfield will receive an income but there will be no marriage commitment.  In fact, Ms. Croft never wants to see Hatfield after the ceremony.

            Hatfield is happy to sign but he's a bit wounded.  How could someone not want him?  But it's a way out of his dilemma.

            The Wedding.  It is a small ceremony, held in an old church in Scotland.  Hatfield sees Croft in her simple gown and unfortunately -- he cant' help it --- he falls in love.  Bad luck.  She is set on her course of action.  But he does talk her into a little kiss after the I do's.  She seems to respond but then she's off.

            Hatfield returns to Monte Carlo where he sees Ramley.  Ramley eventually determines the nature of the marriage and decides that he can regain control of Croft's fortune by showing the court that the marriage is a sham.

            The solicitor, Venable, is in a panic.  He contacts Hatfield.  He tells him that he has to go find Croft and make her fall in love.

            Hatfield is more than happy to comply.  But where to start?

###

           

 

Ota Benga -- The Last Slave in America

An overview of the story I wrote about the last slave in America.

 

Ota Benga

The Last Slave in America

Story: by Michael Rose

 

            Hard as it is to believe, a 23 year-old African pygmy male was captured in Africa, bought at a slave market and brought to this country in 1903 to be displayed at the St. Louis World's Fair.

            Ota Benga's captor, Phillip Vermeer, the grandson of a southern plantation owner, wanted to show the world that blacks were truly inferior.  It was a twisted attempt to morally vindicate the Confederacy and promote the "Back to Africa" movement. 

            What better way than to showcase a pygmy, the lowest form of humanity to Vermeer, and demonstrate once and for all the superiority of the white race over this near animal from the jungle.

            On display next to Ota was another unfortunate victim of America's racism, Geronimo.  Ota and Geronimo bonded when they were taken on a nighttime Ferris Wheel ride by malicious guards who hoped to scare the "savages." 

            Vermeer became a sought after lecturer who regaled his audiences with tales of hunting down the wild pygmy while he pressed his case for the removal of America's blacks.

            The Fairgoers gawked and pointed at the curious little fellow whose differences and inability to communicate seemed to lend credibility to Vermeer.  When a concerned citizen asked the Fair's manager to give the little guy a blanket to ward off the evening chill, he balked, saying that he didn't want to upset the natural order of things.

            When the Fair closed, Vermeer was stuck with his pygmy.  But he had met a lot of influential people while on the lecture circuit. He eventually found a home for Ota.  The Monkey House of the Bronx Zoo was readied to become Ota's new cage.

               New York's black community rose up in protest and got organized. They hit the streets with pickets and speeches found lawyers and secured Ota a day in court .  There were still some who remembered slavery first-hand.  Some had worked on the Underground Railway spiriting scared runaway slaves to safety.  They were not going to let a latter- day Southern aristocrat put one of them in a cage.

            Ota learned enough English to aid in his defense and proved to the court that indeed he was a man not a beast.  Vermeer was vanquished and Ota was freed.  He lived out the rest of his days on one of his supporter's farms teaching children the ways of the forest.   Unfortunately, the trauma of learning that he’d never go home again was too much.  He committed suicide.

            This story lends itself to a three-act treatment with natural geographical act breaks; Africa, St. Louis and New York.  The characters are dynamic and rich.  It is full of adventure, pathos and the drama of misguided human desires.  It is a story that is both shocking and timely.  While it takes place in turn-of-the-century America, the issues it raises are still with us today.

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Slippery

My brief treatment for a fictionalized account of the story of a young woman and the sea lion she rescues.

            In the summer of 1960 there really wasn't much happening in the suburbs.  Especially if you were a twelve year-old girl named Megan Flannagan.  Meg, that's what all the boys called her.  Actually, the girls called her that too.  But not many of either called her anything because she was a bit different.

            Hard to say how she was different.  But kids know when one of their tribe is somehow not quite one of them.  Meg, as many kids do, developed an attitude.  A kind of, to hell-with-them, air.

            She didn't want to play with the girls and the boys didn't want her to play with them.  It was an awkward and lonely age.  But she could fish.  The fish didn't care if she was a gawky girl on the verge of being a teenager.  They bit at her worm that dangled on her hook as if she were the most robust angler around.  Her grandfather had taught her everything he knew about fishing and showed her his secret fishing holes.  He was so confident in her skills, that he let her take his little twelve-foot fishing boat out everyday.  She coaxed its three horsepower motor to turn-over and trolled till it was time to come home.

            Her best friend was her dog, Bait.  Oh, and this pesky boy who the others boys really didn't want around anyway -- Tommy.  Tommy was a little puny and Megan thought he was a real bother but Tommy didn't have anyone else to hang around with and it was too much trouble to shoo him away.

            That same summer, just across Lake St. Clair from Meg's Michigan home, a former touring carnival operator, Cyril Skelton, was about to open his new amusement park, The Storybook Gardens, in London, Ontario Canada.

            Word had trickled down to nearly everyone who lived on the lake that something wonderful was about to appear in their neck of the woods.  Most kids couldn't wait for the park to open.  Tommy asked Meg if she'd ask her mom to take them up there for the opening.  Both of his parents worked and he desperately wanted to be there when the gates opened.  Of course, she thought it was stupid.  Who'd want to go on some mechanical ride that would just make you sick?  Well, Tommy did.  She rolled her eyes.

            The amusement park was the dream of a classic, carny hustler.  After years of knocking around as a small time con artist in one carnival after another, Skelton had scraped together enough money to open his own dream park.

             The centerpiece was going to be something truly unique -- a sea lion.  He'd hired a team to go out to California and capture a sea lion.   He was having it shipped back.

            The park's foreman was filling the specially built tank in preparation for the sea lion's arrival.  A sign announcing  the arrival was being put up.  Skelton had named his sea lion, Slippery.

            It was late and Skelton was heading home.  Tomorrow would be a big day.  Slippery was set to arrive and the following day, the park would open.

            Skelton inspected the tank, said goodnight to the foreman and slipped away.  The foreman was happy to see the old guy go.  He slipped his hand into his coat and took out a pint of Canadian Whiskey.  Something to help him while away the hours as the tank filled. 

            The next day the tank was half full when Skelton arrived.  The foreman had just woken up and luckily had remembered to hide his empty bottle.

            As he inspected the tank, a large truck arrived.  It was Slippery.  Within a few minutes, Slippery was dumped out of his specially constructed container and rolled into his new home, the still filling tank.

            Back at home, Meg's parents are asking her if she wants to go to the Storybook Gardens opening tomorrow.  She says she'd rather go fishing.  They worry about their strange child.  Tommy's with her and he says he'll go but they can't take him alone.  He needles her to go.  She pushes him away.

            It's night again.  And the tank is almost full.  Skelton is so nervous.  Tomorrow is his big day.  The foreman says it's all under control and Skelton leaves.  Once again the bottle comes out.  Slippery swims slowly around the tank, wondering where he is.

            The foreman drinks his pint and falls asleep but the water is still pouring into the tank.  It begins to spill over the side and cascade down the sheer cliff that drops into a river that leads into Lake St. Clair.

            Slippery swims over to the edge.  He sees the water falling over the side.  He pulls himself up, looks over, hesitates and pushes off.  Down he soars, like a crashing Zeppelin.  Fins out, whiskers back and eyes open – it’s quite a spectacle.  Within seconds he's splashed into the water.  A little shocked but he senses he's free.  What to do?  Swim.  And swim he does.

            The next morning, Skelton arrives to find his foreman still passed out.  He rouses him from his slumber and turns off the still gushing hose.  While he yells at the sleepy guard he looks for his sea lion.  He sees the cascading water, and realizes what happened.

            Skelton calls the Mounties.  They always get their man.  Why not a sea lion?  The Mounties think he’s a crank but finally agree to take on the challenge of finding the fugitive sea creature.

            A manhunt or a sea lion hunt ensues.  A flotilla of boats head off in hot pursuit carrying a gaggle of Mounties and veterinarians armed with rifles that shoot tranquilizer darts.  At their briefing they’d been told their mission: find trap and return the fleeing Slippery.  No one can be allowed to elude the reach of the Mounties --- the stability of our society depends on order.  The chaos caused by the sea lion must be stopped.

In the meantime, what to do about the grand opening?  Skelton works the press and creates a media circus.   The empty tank is on display for all to see.  Photos of the missing sea lion pop up around town.  Everyone is on the lookout for the run/swimaway.

            It's a terrifying journey for this lost sea lion.  Dodging motorboats, skiers, fisherman, freighters and the Mountie’s boats -- it’s one hazard after another.  After traveling for two days he’s in pretty bad shape.  Eels have nibbled on him, he weak from not eating and he’s tired from constantly swimming.  But he’s eluded his hunters and finally finds refuge in a little cove. 

            Meg just happens to like fishing in that same cove.  She spies the frightened sea lion, befriends him (a few tasty fish slipped to the poor thing doesn't hurt) and with Tommy's help, they lead him back to her boathouse.  She plans to nurse him back to health.  She makes Tommy swear not to tell.

            Tommy is not the best one to rely on if you want a secret kept.  He has so little to share with anyone that he’s just too excited, he can’t keep it to himself.  He tries but it’s inevitable that he’ll let it slip.  While reading comic books at the drug store, Tommy overhears Liz, the most popular girl in school, telling her friends that she thinks the sea lion is dead.  They can’t live in fresh water.  Tommy, defending Slippery’s honor and prowess, blurts out his secret.  Liz and her gang, shocked to hear from the nerdy little boy, mercilessly pump him for all the details.  They decide they have to tell the Police.  The local cops, working with the Mounties, track down Slippery in her boathouse and take him to the local veterinarian for safekeeping.

            Meg could kill Tommy.  Her parents are angry that she hid this from them but they are kind of proud of her too.  She's just bluer than blue.  She doesn't even want to fish.  She goes to visit her granddad, a retired judge, who lived in a cottage on the lake.  Her grandfather sympathizes and looks for a way to console his young granddaughter. 

            He explains “ferae naturae”, the ancient law that animals found in the sea belong to the finder.  So, by rights, Slippery is hers.  All she has to do is go to court and claim her property.  She’s thrilled but she needs help.  Granddad agrees to help.

            Their work begins.  There is research to be done, legal documents to prepare and papers to file – all in order to make the case to a judge.  Slippery is in the custody of the vet until the case is decided.

            She enlists her parents and pretty soon everyone in the family is working on Meg’s legal case.  She begins to gain confidence in her ability to spring Slippery.  She works hard and hardly sleeps from excitement.  She can save Slippery.  She can restore him to freedom.

            The US Ambassador to Canada and the Canadian Ambassador to the US meet with the judge and implore him to return the sea lion to Skelton, lest 16 million Canadians rise up to claim their sea lion.  This could be an international incident.  The Governor is no help, he doesn’t want to get into it.  The judge retreats to his study and looks up the state’s wildlife laws.  He finds a way out.  Since sea lions are not listed as a species in his state, he rules that it’s just a property dispute and that Slippery must be returned to Skelton.  A slippery decision at best.

            Meg watches as Skelton and his henchmen load Slippery into the back of a Storybook Gardens panel truck and driven away.  She is devastated.  She feels like she let Slippery down.  It’s not fair. He won’t be free.  He’ll be on display.  He’ll be imprisoned in a tank, swimming in custody.  He’ll be dependent on Skelton to feed him and take care of him.  She knows this will not be healthy for the fun-loving sea lion.    Not even her beloved Granddad can comfort her. 

            The only good news is that the other kids think what she did is kind off cool.  She went to court and talked to a judge and everything.  For the first time she gets some friendly comments from the local swells.

            While this is nice, she still is plenty steamed at Tommy and he has to do something to dig himself out of this hole.

            While watching the triumphant televised return of Slippery to Storybook Gardens, Tommy gets angry.  He convinces Meg that they should somehow take matters into their own hands, he just doesn’t know how. 

            A million plans are hatched and rejected until they see a news report about a sit-down strike in South Carolina.  Why not organize a protest?  We could shut down the gardens and set Slippery free.

            They spring into action.  Within weeks they've gotten enough kids to join them in their crusade.  Funds from lemonade stands, pooled allowances, the sale of the odd baseball glove, wages from baby sitting goes into the Slippery freedom fund. 

Kids arrive at the boathouse on a regular basis to put together picket signs.  Meg’s parents are delighted, but somewhat puzzled by their daughter’s newfound popularity.

            Meanwhile, reports emerge that a lonely, despondent Slippery is not eating.  His health worsens while he listlessly watches a four-foot wall being built around his pool.  The kids decide they have to act now, but they have to get across the border into Canada.  They need an adult who can act as field trip leader.  Granddad to the rescue.

            At sunrise, Granddad  and the group gather at the Greyhound Station.  They board the bus and head off on a mission to free Slippery. 

            Skelton arrives to find his park surrounded by a gaggle of shouting, little picketers.

            He tries to get rid of them.  He upbraids Granddad who shrugs his shoulders and picks up a picket sign.  Skelton tries to bribe the kids with free passes and when that doesn't work he calls the cops.  Of course, reporters appear dreaming of wonderful headlines.  “Kids' park owner has kids arrested.”  This story has it all – kids, animals and conflict.  What could be better? 

            Meg's parents are not happy.  Meg is grounded, as are her cohorts.  The border is off limits to American kids.  She sits at home and watches TV.  But what's this, Canadian kids turn out to picket the next day.  It's like spontaneous combustion.  Picketing is more fun than riding the pukey carnival rides.

            She and Tommy take her boat across the lake to the Canadian side.  They sneak back to Storybook Gardens.  They are amazed by what they see.  It has become a movement.  No one is going into the park. It’s ringed by sign-toting, chanting kids.  The rides are idle and Skelton will go broke if he doesn't give in.

            Skelton spots Meg and Tommy and calls the cops.  The picketers run to her defense and she slips into the park.  She’s headed for Slippery’s pool as Skelton is surrounded by an angry mob of youngsters. 

            Slippery sees her and perks up immediately.  She tosses him a bucket full of sardines and he eagerly slurps them up.  She jumps into the tank.  He swims up to her and gives her a whiskery kiss, which she wipes off with a “yuck!”

            Skelton has escaped from his captors and is headed for the pool as Meg tries to hoist Slippery over the wall.  She fails and within minutes, she’s cornered.  The cops have arrived and Skelton is demanding that they arrest her.

            The rest of the kids have entered the pool area, followed by news crews.  Skelton is questioned by the reporters.  What’s he going to do?  Have a twelve-year old arrested? You want to put her on display too, they ask?

            Meg rises to the occasion and tells Skelton that he has only one choice ---- let Slippery go or have his park boycotted forever.   The kids shout their support.  Slippery barks his support.  All eyes are on Skelton.  Just then a sign over Slippery’s pool comes partially unhinged and squeaks it approval.

            Eventually he does.  He ships Slippery back to his California home and reopens with a new name --- Slippery's.  The kids can't get enough.  Even Meg takes a ride on a roller coaster.

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