A Happy Anniversary to Doctor Who Tried To Save The President's life: The Financial Wayback Machine

By Bill Jackson April 14, 2024 10 mins read 105 Views

By Josh Katzowitz, WCI Content Director

One hundred fifty-nine years ago today, John Wilkes Booth sneaked into Abraham Lincoln’s presidential booth and, while Lincoln and his wife watched the play “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC, Booth changed the course of history with a single gunshot.

A Happy Anniversary to Doctor Who Tried To Save The President's life: The Financial Wayback Machine

About 40 feet away from the presidential box, Dr. Charles Leale —who had arrived late to the theater that evening and who, thus, didn’t have a great seat to see the play or to see Lincoln—heard the shot and saw Booth, dagger in hand, leap onto the stage from the box. He heard a woman shout that the president had been murdered, and Leale ran to the box, where he gained entrance and saw Lincoln slumped over in his armchair with a crying Mary Todd Lincoln supporting his head.

As Leale later recalled, she cried out, “Oh doctor, do what you can for him!”

Turns out that Leale saved Lincoln’s life —temporarily, at least.

[I’ve always loved history. I’ve always loved the idea of taking a peek into the past and studying it from the current-day perspective. The idea of time travel also fascinates me. And now that I’ve found a passion for writing about finance, I’m combining all of it together in an occasional column for WCI called “The Financial Wayback Machine.”

I want to journey back in time and look at those supposedly great ideas that now seem ridiculous, all the good and terrible predictions (crystal balls have never not been cloudy), the doctors who did great (and shady) things, and all the seemingly minor news nuggets that ended up making huge waves. It’ll be fun, it’ll be silly, and maybe it’ll be a good lesson for what not to do with your money today.

After all, as WCI Founder Dr. Jim Dahle once said on the podcast, “If you've never read history, you're destined to repeat it.”

Step into the Financial Wayback Machine with me, and let’s travel back in time.]

The Doctor Who Tried to Save Abraham Lincoln

Charles Leale, then 23 years old, was only six weeks removed from medical school when he bought his ticket to “Our American Cousin” on April 14, 1865. His father had worked in a US Marine hospital in Portland, Maine when Charles was growing up, and after graduating from medical school, the younger Leale worked as a surgeon at an army hospital in Washington DC, helping repair soldiers who were streaming in by train from the Civil War battlefields.

A few days before Lincoln’s untimely demise, Leale was taking a leisurely stroll along Pennsylvania Avenue, when he happened upon the president making the final public speech of his life (Booth was also in attendance). Leale was so moved by Lincoln that he decided to buy a theater ticket a few days later so he could be near the man again.

Dr. Charles Leale

As Leale remembered in 1909, this is what happened when the Lincolns entered Ford’s Theatre.

“Suddenly there was a cheering welcome, the acting ceased temporarily out of respect to the entering Presidential party. Many in the audience rose to their feet in enthusiasm and vociferously cheered, while looking around. Turning, I saw in the aisle a few feet behind me, President Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln, Major [Henry] Rathbone and Miss [Clara] Harris. Mrs. Lincoln smiled very happily in acknowledgment of the loyal greeting, gracefully curtsied several times and seemed to be overflowing with good cheer and thankfulness. I had the best opportunity to distinctly see the full face of the President, as the light shone directly upon him.

“After he had walked a few feet, he stopped for a moment, looked upon the people he loved and acknowledged their salutations with a solemn bow. His face was perfectly stoical, his deep set eyes gave him a pathetically sad appearance. The audience seemed to be enthusiastically cheerful, but he alone looked peculiarly sorrowful, as he slowly walked with bowed head and drooping shoulders toward the box. I was looking at him as he took his last walk. The memory of that scene has never been effaced.”

Soon after, Booth’s bullet struck Lincoln, leaving him unconscious and paralyzed. He had difficulty breathing (at one point, Leale gave him mouth-to-mouth to keep the oxygen flowing). After sending a pair of gentlemen to find brandy and water for the president, Leale examined the fallen Lincoln. Originally, the doctor thought Lincoln had been stabbed, because he had seen Booth with the knife after he jumped on stage. But after the president was moved to a recumbent position and Lincoln’s coat and shirt were cut off, Leale saw no stab wounds. Instead, he found the bullet’s entry point in the back of Lincoln’s skull.

Leale had been taking care of soldiers who had taken bullet shots of their own, and he was up to date on the best ways to treat gunshot wounds. But this was 1865, and as one ER doctor who has studied the Lincoln assassination said, “The training back then was very limited, not only in medical education but surgical care. There really were no surgical training programs then . . . A gunshot wound in the head like Lincoln had in 1865 was 100% fatal.”

Almost immediately, Leale knew Lincoln would not survive, saying, “His wound is mortal: it is impossible for him to recover.” But instead of sending him in a carriage back to the White House (the six-block ride over bumpy streets probably would have killed Lincoln) or leaving him to die where Booth had shot him, Leale instructed a group of soldiers to move the president across the street to a boarding house. From there, Leale stayed with Lincoln, clearing blood clots out of the head wound with his finger to reduce the brain’s swelling. Leale also held Lincoln’s right hand as he lay in bed so the nation’s 16th president would know, “in his blindness, that he had a friend,” until he died early the next morning.

Afterward, Leale said:

“I left the house in deep meditation . . . My clothing was stained with blood, I had not once been seated since I first sprang to the President’s aid; I was cold, weary and sad. The dawn of peace was again clouded, the most cruel war in history had not completely ended.”

The rain fell on Leale’s bare head as he walked away from the boarding house, and he realized that he had left his hat in his seat at Ford’s Theatre, lost in the shuffle as he saved Lincoln’s life at least temporarily.

“When Dr. Leale got into the president’s box, Lincoln was technically dead,” Dr. Blaine Houmes, an emergency room specialist, told the Associated Press. “He was able to regain a pulse and get breathing started again. He basically saved Lincoln’s life, even though he didn’t survive the wound.”

While Leale couldn’t save the president, he might have accomplished something even more important. As Delaware Online wrote in 2015, “His quick thinking on assassination night had prolonged President Lincoln's life for nine hours—long enough to keep the fragile Union from falling apart. Not bad for a 23-year-old just 45 days out of medical school.”

More information here:

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How Much Would King Solomon and Augustus Be Worth Today?

Have you ever wondered how much the richest people who ever lived would be worth today? GoBankingRates.com did, and the website put together a list of people like John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie to see what their net worth would be today. Both men would surpass $300 billion—not too shabby considering the richest person in the world today, Bernard Arnault, has a net worth of $215 billion.

But what about those from ancient times who (I assume) spent their free time swimming in piles of gold and jewels?

Let’s take a look at Augustus Caeser (who lived from 63 BC to 14 AD) and King Solomon (who lived in the 900s BC).

Caeser, the adopted son of Julius Caeser, was the first Roman emperor, and according to Money.com, that empire accounted for more than 25% of the entire world’s output (Augustus’ wealth was apparently one-fifth of his empire’s economy). That means he’d be worth about 24 times more than Elon Musk is today. Augustus could have bought a TON of Teslas with that kind of money.

Caeser’s worth in today’s dollars: about $4.7 trillion.

Meanwhile, King Solomon reigned over Israel for nearly 40 years, and he apparently drew an annual salary of 25 tons of gold. He also received plenty of gifts from people who came to visit him, and the people he ruled had to pay a heavy load of taxes, all of which benefited Solomon.

Though it’s impossible to know how much he’d actually be worth, here are some estimates for his worth in today’s dollars: somewhere between $200 billion and $2 trillion.

Which reinforces my view of why staying humble, no matter how rich you are, is vital. Even if you eventually become a deca-millionaire (or even if you can accumulate a $50 million nest egg), there are plenty of people throughout history who would look at your bank statements and laugh in your face.

How “Cheers” Was Asked by the US Government to Promote Savings Bonds

While “Cheers” is one of the most beloved sitcoms of the 1980s and early 1990s, that doesn’t mean the comedy that launched the careers of Ted Danson and George Wendt wasn’t immune from delivering a little government propaganda.

As noted by Mental Floss, “Cheers” filmed a special 11-minute episode in 1982 that extolled the wonders of US savings bonds.

As IMDB summarizes:

“Cliff mentions that he is taking a trip to . . . Tahiti. How can he afford such a trip? He invested in US Savings Bonds through the post office's payroll savings plan. When Sam contemplates purchasing some savings bonds himself, Diane balks at the notion, believing that the stock market is the way to make money. Based on literature Sam has on hand and the knowledge that Cliff and Norm have on the issue, they try to convince Diane, Carla, and Coach that bonds are not only a safe investment but a high yield and tax smart one.”

Interestingly, none of it actually aired on TV, though you can watch it on Vimeo.

It’s unclear if leveraging the popularity of “Cheers” actually enticed people to lend their money to the government, particularly since Diane, no matter how uptight she was, made good points about how investing in the stock market is the way to make real money and how savings bonds were “old fashioned, out of date, and they don’t give you a good return on your money” (sadly, the rest of the cast (and the US government!) convinced her that US savings bonds were the way to go by the end of the mini-episode).

But hey, if Sam Malone gives you financial advice, well, I guess you could do worse. After all, he’s not going to charge you 1% AUM, and you can drink plenty of beer while he, on the spur of the moment (!), decides he’s going to start a payroll savings plan for his small business. And even if your financial advisor doesn’t remember your name, everybody at Cheers will.

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Money Song of the Week

Though I’ve probably spent a total of two months of my life in Nashville, I’d never visited one of its most famous attractions: The Grand Ole Opry. On a recent long weekend trip—that included drinking whiskey at noon while listening to a country band cover Willie Nelson at one of the city’s most famous honky-tonks, taking an $18 river boat ride inside the Opryland Hotel, and eating at one of my favorite restaurants ever—the family and I moseyed on over to the Opry House and took in a show.

I’m not a country music guy, but hearing it live (along with bluegrass and Americana and whatever else the nine bands and performers on the bill threw at us) is a fantastic experience.

I’d never heard of The Grascals, one of the bands we saw, but the six-piece has been active for 20 years and has been nominated thrice for a Grammy. Oh, and it used to be Dolly Parton’s road band.

As is to be expected if you sing in a country music twang, The Grascals don’t mind talking about drinking, women, and money. Or all three at once. Check out My Night to Howl to take in some of the best bluegrass I’ve ever heard (to be fair, my knowledge of bluegrass is limited to, like, Steve Martin and watching old clips of Hee Haw).

As The Grascals sing:

“Well I'm gonna be where there's lights and smoke/Ain't going home til I'm flat broke/Gonna turn this town ever way but loose/Turn the jukebox up til I can't think/Mr. Bartender bring another drink/‘Cause I may wind up sleeping in the calaboose.”

FYI, “calaboose” = “jail.” Because I guess if you don’t eventually sing about landing in the pokey after getting hammered at the bar while spending your entire paycheck, you’ll never make it on the Grand Ole Opry stage.

Tweet of the Week

Or, you know, you could just give all of us more money.

Admin, is that you? pic.twitter.com/OBjxgqGBPE

— Tyler Olson (@olsonplanner) March 26, 2024

Do you really think it’s a good idea to take financial advice from Cliff Clavin? What other examples of government propaganda have infiltrated American pop culture? Comment below!

[Editor's Note: For comments, complaints, suggestions, or plaudits, email Josh Katzowitz at [email protected].]

The post A Solemn Happy Anniversary to the Doctor Who Tried to Save the President’s Life: The Financial Wayback Machine appeared first on The White Coat Investor - Investing & Personal Finance for Doctors.

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By: Josh Katzowitz
Title: A Solemn Happy Anniversary to the Doctor Who Tried to Save the President’s Life: The Financial Wayback Machine
Sourced From: www.whitecoatinvestor.com/dr-charles-leale-lincoln-assassination/
Published Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2024 06:30:51 +0000