How Are The Mighty Fallen

[Stewart P Evans]

Very Interesting

...
At best, we are left with it being Fido's opinion--learned as it may or may not be--that Anderson did not lie about Jack the Ripper. Accept his word as one wishes, but clearly Paul Begg has embraced it with the fervor of a born-again. The question that needs be asked, however, is whether Begg has done so because of his unwavering faith in Fido's ability to plumb the character of the long dead or because accepting it buttresses his own opinions about the identity of JtR?
...
Don.

Very interesting Don. You may have noted that I gave the example of Fido assessing the characters of Anderson and Smith.

Fido wrote, "It goes without saying that Smith the worldling and Anderson the millenarianist were utterly antipathetical personalities. Neither can be imagined having any comfortable dealings with the other, or willingly exchanging confidences" (Fido, Martin: The Crimes, Detection and Death of Jack the Ripper, 1987).

This assessment was firmly accepted by Begg, who quotes it, and adds "This observation seems well made, since the attack on Anderson by Smith [1910] hardly reads like the two men were friends or even friendly former colleagues." (Begg, Paul, Ripperologist 100, February 2009, page 19).

It has been shown that this assessment is totally wrong and the two men were on very friendly terms and exchanging confidences in 1901. Does this reflect on the weight we should attach to conclusions reached by Fido?

[Ally]

According to Leahy, I'm persona non grata there now, which I think is a huge, massive mistake on their part. I guess it doesn't occur to some people that you can professionally disagree and still enjoy a personal relationship.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

I think the last sentence sums it up. There are people in this business who have an absolutely huge, yet correspondingly fragile egos and if you cross them or publicly disagree with them on something, you get on their shitlist and there is no escape. It is an attitude that I truly do not understand. I learn best by hearing the reasoning and the debates of others, through vigorous argument and exchange of ideas. I rarely condemn a person based on their ideas (unless they are of a particularly revolting sort obviously.) Unwillingness to learn or admit you could be wrong is one of the worst traits a human can possess in my opinion. I seek out people who disagree with me on many things, because if you only converse with those who agree with you, how in the world do you ever learn anything new?

[Scott Nelson]

What about the time periods in which Anderson and Smith would have been on friendly terms with one another? Were they on again -- off again, or was it a continuous cordial relationship?

[Admin]

The thread is now re-opened. Please be advised a poster decided to continue the insulting by creating another thread and continuing the argument there. That will not be tolerated. Enough means enough, it's over.

You may continue to disagree, but please do it cordially and on topic.

Thank you.

[Tom_Wescott]

What does Swanson's character tell us?

Taking a couple steps away from speculation for a moment and turning instead towards the slightly more agreeable approach of inference, what can we infer from the fact that Donald Swanson seems not to have thought Anderson out of his mind or his theory 'rubbish', at least to the extent that he provided details and a name to Anderson's Polish Jew suspect. Swanson seems to be a far less controversial figure with a more dependable and credible character than Anderson. Surely some of this credibility should therefore transfer to Anderson's theory, if not the man himself?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Ally]

Well that speculation will no doubt lead us to questions of the marginalia's authenticity and there we go again.

[Tom_Wescott]

Good point, so let's just take the majority view for the sake of argument and assume that the Swanson marginalia is legit, which I personally think is the case.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

Belief in Anderson's unfailing scrupulosity lends support to the Polish Jew. Belief in the Polish Jew lends support to Macnaghten's Kosminski. Belief in Macnaghten's Kosminski lends support to the Swanson Marginalia, and belief in the Swanson Marginalia lends support to Anderson's unfailing scrupulosity.

Do the math.

Regards,

Simon

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Simon. I'm afraid the issue is not so cut and dried. I have been shown no proof that Anderson concocted or imagined a Polish Jew suspect, but I do have proof that over a period of many years he wrote about this suspect with varying degrees of vigor. I then also have evidence that Donald Swanson was fully aware of this suspect and recorded details about him, of varying veracity. Ergo, at this point I consider Kosminski/Polish Jew a legitimate contemporary suspect, and I would hope you're aware that I do not by any means have a "belief in Anderson's unfailing scrupulosity", nor do I see why that has to be necessary to accept Kosminski as a contemporary suspect.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Jenni Shelden]

Hi Tom,
re Swanson. I was wondering earlier, could it simply be the case, that rather than supporting Anderson, Swanson is adding detail to what he knows of his theory?

I am not saying I have looked into this further than that thought, given straight from my mind. It is just, writing in someone else's book, would not definately mean concurance. I mean if I were the note making type and made notes in books, would it be to state my opinion or simply to bolster the text with my own knowledge, for eg - if Swanson were asked about it later - which he may have felt he might be!!

Jenni

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Jenni, that's more or less what I'm saying. But if, as some have suggested, that Anderson concocted his suspect out of thin air, or confused him with Pizer and Sadler, et al, how would Swanson have possessed any details with which to share? Stewart Evans and Jonathan Hainsworth are much smarter than I am, so I don't yet fully understand their ideas regarding How Anderson came to confused a bunch of different people and come up with the man Swanson calls Kosminski. I'm not at all comfortable that the entire thing was a big lie orchestrated by Anderson and Swanson, but I am very comfortable in believing that some measure of exaggeration made it into Anderson's writings.

Having said all that, I'm not the Anderson/Kosminski scholar that many others around here are.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Natalie Severn]

When the News of the World were approached by Swanson"s grandson [s]? I understand they rejected the "story" .The naming of Kosminski in the "end notes" could not have impressed their editors very much at all nor impressed them that this chap had somehow therefore been "named" as Jack the Ripper.They are pretty thorough these big newspapers, employing all sorts of experts to help check things out and they always have legal experts working for them round the clock who may well have picked up on the flimsiness of Swanson"s notes in margins and on end paper -as Jenn points out lots of us make notes in pen"cil in books but it doesnt usually mean much.They would have been sure to note all the gaps too ,from a legal point of view ,of the case Anderson had made in his autobiography against his Polish Jew suspect .I have seen the files in a big newspaper office and a big news agency and they are pretty amazing and seem to cover everything.

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Nats. I'm not sure I see your point. What does it matter what story the News of the World were willing to pay money for in 1981, when the Ripper was NOT hot property? And who's to say it wasn't Swanson who turned down their offer, finding it too low?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Natalie Severn]

Good point Tom.I dont know much about the matter but it was the centenary and newspapers would have been aware of that and on the look out for a good story.But yes, maybe it was Mr Swanson who turned their offer down!

[Tom_Wescott]

What is important is that we have proof that Mr. Swanson was in possession of the book with the marginalia at a time when Anderson's suspect was assumed to be John Pizer. This leads to really only two possibilities:

1) The marginalia is totally legit.

2) The first part of the marginalia is legit with the words 'Kosminski was the suspect' added by someone at a later date.

But either way, whoever wrote that last line was working from inside information - either Swanson himself or a descendant he told the story to. Either way, the information is as good as if Swanson wrote it himself, so it's a moot point if the last line happened to have been added in more recent times, which really there's not much case for supposing.

And all of this leads me back to my original question - could Swanson's general credibility be seen to lend credibility to Anderson's Polish Jew theory, at least to the extent that Anderson didn't imagine it or make it up?

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott