Aristocrats vs. The Common Man

“The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy.” — Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations — 1774

American colonial history represents a striking event in world history-the transatlantic migration of millions of people, from the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492, to the first permanent British settlement in America in 1607, to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

English Puritans arriving in Massachusetts comprised the first of four great migrations to America. After the English Civil War a generation later, Royalist Cavaliers, Anglican Royalists, and sympathizers of the Crown fled Puritan-dominated England and settled in the Virginia area. The third transatlantic migration occurred between 1675 and 1725, when Quakers from the northern midlands of England arrived in the Delaware River Valley. The fourth of the great migrations was comprised of Scots-Irish who settled in the broad expanse of land from western Pennsylvania to the Shenandoah Valley.

The Puritans are especially noteworthy among these early immigrants to America. The Mayflower Compact, John Winthrop's sermon, "A Modell of Christian Charity," and Winthrop's speech to the Massachusetts General Court of July 3, 1645 — three Puritan documents-highlight their understanding of the purpose of civil society and the function of government as being wedded to the advancement and glory of God and the "better ordering and preservation" of each individual. These documents establish the early importance placed on the rule of law, the role of a covenant or compact to establish a "civil body politic," and the essentialness of ongoing deliberation for self-government.

These documents also layout noteworthy differences between the Puritans and the Founders. They declare the primary importance of community at the expense of individual rights, the foundation of any claim to individual liberties to be responsibilities, and the perpetual subjugation of "true liberty" to authority exercised rightly. But an important debate arose from this understanding of society and government, concerning the relationship between the authority of magistrates and the liberty of the people, which debate has remained an essential aspect of American self-government.

As these four migrations began to establish themselves as political powers within Colonial America two began gaining more influence — the descendants of the Puritans in Massachusetts and the descendants of the Royalist Cavaliers in Virginia. Each had a separate relationship with the mother country and the king. The Puritans had become a more mercantile society clustering to cities like Boston and Philadelphia while the Royalist gravitated to farming with cotton and tobacco being mainstay crops and a plantation system that required slavery. Our Founders would come from both camps.

One of the leading lights to emanate from the Puritan heritage was Benjamin Franklin. The son of a candle maker who came to the colonies in the late 1600s, young Benjamin Franklin had little formal schooling, and despised the idea of following in his father's trade. He was apprenticed to his brother's newspaper, the New England Courant, during which time he embarked on a rigorous self-education, reading widely in history, philosophy and such popular writing as that of Addison and Steele. By the age of 16 he was writing essays for the Courant under the pseudonym "Silence Dogood." After leaving his hometown of Boston for Philadelphia, Franklin continued his self-education while working in a printer's shop, and, after taking a two year journey to England, he settled down to run his own paper, The Pennsylvania Gazette. While Franklin was establishing himself as a printer and writer, he also found time for public projects, such as the founding of the "Junto," a group of mostly young tradesmen who were, like Franklin, establishing themselves in business and the community. Through the work of the Junto and the questions it dealt with, Franklin lead important projects in the community such as the creation of the first library, and the formation of the first fire company in Philadelphia. The Junto also took up questions of scientific inquiry into the natural world. Franklin's experiments and discoveries in electricity are well known, but, among many other things, he also advised Robert Fulton on the creation of the steam engine, and hypothesized that the common cold was not caused by cold temperatures, but, rather what he called "contagion."

The life and civic activities of Benjamin Franklin were in a real sense a kind of experiment: an experiment in human and political equality. Britain and the rest of Europe were aristocratic states and societies, and it was assumed that men and women of birth were superior to those of humbler origin. American society was without the aristocratic social structure with its explicit and implicit prejudices. Thus Franklin, the son of a candle maker, could become the most distinguished man in the colonies prior to the Revolutionary War based solely upon his genius and hard work. The growth of early America's civil society was proof of the principle of equality held by Franklin and others. Colonists began to understand that in building up their local institutions, they must do things for themselves, all the while meeting with opposition in colonial assemblies, and often being overruled by an incompetent and arbitrary royal governor. Indeed, it was the repeated quarrels between the people of the Colony of Pennsylvania and the Royal Proprietor, Thomas Penn, son of the great William Penn, which took Franklin to London as the colony's agent. While there he became the de facto agent for all the colonies and tried again and again to show the Board of Trade and Parliament how ill-advised their policies were, particularly the Stamp Act. But the philosophical currents of the day - those of the Enlightenment — were on the side of Franklin and the colonists, who soon would be known as revolutionaries.

This period called the Enlightenment, of which Franklin was the great embodiment in America, served as the important foundation for the American Revolution. The Enlightenment was a period of education for the American colonies, and, like young Franklin's education, it was largely self-imposed and therefore all the more valued by those undertook it. There is much scholarly argument surrounding the Enlightenment, a disputed term not only today, but in its own time. Was it a consistent body of thought? Was it holy irreligious or antireligious? Was the Enlightenment a uniform movement of thought or were there separate "Enlightenments" plural? It is important to remember that the Enlightenment is also called the neoclassical period, meaning that key figures of the period, particularly Americans during the Revolution, did not consider themselves to be inventing something new. Rather, they were rediscovering things that had always been true, though mankind had not always been able or eager to know them. The foundation of the American Enlightenment was science, a term which in the 18th Century still meant "knowledge" or inquiry generally. On the foundation of scientific inquiry, the American Enlightenment had four "pillars": religious liberty, political liberty, economic liberty and moral responsibility. This moral, political, and economic science that constituted the American Enlightenment aimed at supporting one chief end, what the founders understood as human happiness. And the nation they were forming would an example of a free, responsible self-governing people living and working in civil society under the rule of law in order to achieve their individual and collective happiness.

Franklin had a problem with European aristocrats controlling the dialog of our civil society. These aristocrats and elites were not from the people, they were from an inbred society of men who gained their elevated positions not through merit or accomplishments, but through accident of birth. Yet they were the ones who were suggesting laws and regulations to the King of England for the governance of his colonies. Franklin wanted a group, or as he called it a club, of local tradesmen — men with a stake in the community and civil society, who would explore and discuss issue of the day. He called this club the Junto.

The Junto was a club for mutual improvement established in 1727 by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. Also known as the Leather Apron Club, its purpose was to debate questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy, and to exchange knowledge of business affairs. Franklin organized a group of friends to provide a structured form of mutual improvement. The group, initially composed of twelve members, called itself the Junto. The members of the Junto were drawn from diverse occupations and backgrounds, but they all shared a spirit of inquiry and a desire to improve themselves, their community, and to help others. Among the original members were printers, surveyors, a cabinetmaker, a clerk, and a bartender. Although most of the members were older than Franklin, he was clearly their leader.

Franklin describes the formation and purpose of the Junto in his autobiography:

“I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, [1727] I had form'd most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the Junto; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy, to be discuss'd by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased.

Our debates were to be under the direction of a president, and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary penalties.”

Franklin wrote his autobiography largely to teach his son William (1731–1813) and other young men how to become successful. What better example of success than his own life?

Franklin was devoted to knowledge and through this devotion established the firs lending library in colonies. Here is an excerpt from his autobiography stating how he wanted to make books more available to his fellow citizens:

“At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania there was not a good bookseller’s shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York and Philadelphia the printers were indeed stationers; they sold only paper, etc., almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books. Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from England; the members of the Junto had each a few. We had left the ale-house, where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. I proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that room, where they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a common benefit, each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wished to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contented us.

Finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed to render the benefit from books more common by commencing a public subscription library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would be necessary, and got a skillful conveyancer, Mr. Charles Brockden, to put the whole in form of articles of agreement, to be subscribed, by which each subscriber engaged to pay a certain sum down for the first purchase of books, and an annual contribution for increasing them. So few were the readers at that time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not able, with great industry, to find more than fifty persons, mostly young tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each, and ten shillings per annum. On this little fund we began. The books were imported; the library was opened one day in the week for lending to the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility; was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, having no public amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observed by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries.”

Franklin was a self-educated man. He had no formal education beyond a few basic years when living at home prior to his being apprenticed in indentured servitude to his older brother. When talking about his own education Franklin had this to say:

“This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repaired in some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me. Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my printing-house; I had a young family coming on to be educated, and I had to contend with for business two printers, who were established in the place before me. My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. My original habits of frugality continuing, and my father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, “Do you see a man diligent in his calling? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.”1 I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which encouraged me, though I did not think that I should ever literally stand before kings, which, however, has since happened; for I have stood before five, and even had the honor of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner.”

Franklin was not an atheist nor was he agnostic. He believed in a Deity who made the world and governed it. When it came to religion Franklin had this to say:

“I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and though some of the dogmas of that persuasion, such as the eternal decrees of God, election, reprobation, etc., appeared to me unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being my studying day, I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that He made the world, and governed it by His providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteemed the essentials of every religion; and, being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them all, though with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mixed with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, served principally to divide us and make us unfriendly to one another. This respect to all, with an opinion that the worst had some good effects, induced me to avoid all discourse that might tend to lessen the good opinion another might have of his own religion; and as our province increased in people, and new places of worship were continually wanted, and generally erected by voluntary contribution, my mite for such purpose, whatever might be the sect, was never refused.”

In speaking about morality Franklin stated:

“In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I met in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning.

1. These names of virtues, with their precepts were:
2. Temperance—Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
3. Silence—Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
4. Order—Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
5. Resolution—Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
6. Frugality—Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself, i.e., waste nothing.
7. Industry—Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
8. Sincerity—Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
9. Justice—Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
10. Moderation—Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
11. Cleanliness—Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.
12. Tranquility—Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
13. Chastity—Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
14. Humility—Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time, and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone through the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arranged them with that view, as they stand above.”

Franklin had a firm belief in self-governance and that the main purpose of any government was to protect the rights of the civil society, through criminal and civil law, from those who would abridge those rights. He believed, like John Locke, that a man’s happiness was attained through his property — property he earned from his physical or mental efforts and was not due to any king or prince without his consent.

In 1776 when the Continental Congress was debating a break with the King of England they appointed a committee of five including Franklin along with Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman to author a document that could be presented to the King. Adams was selected to chair the committee and he charged Jefferson with the task of witting the first draft while he and Franklin would edit Jefferson’s work. That document became our Declaration of Independence and stated:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It should be noted that the word “unalienable” was suggested by Franklin to replace Jefferson’s phase “God given.”

This has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language", containing "the most potent and consequential words in American history." The passage came to represent a moral standard to which the United States should strive. This view was notably promoted by Abraham Lincoln, who considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his political philosophy, and argued that the Declaration is a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted.

Franklin was also known for his many scientific discoveries and inventions. He was the first to use the terms negative and positive when referring to electricity and his famous experiment with the kite, string and key to observe the effects of lightening brought him international fame. He was compared to Isaac Newton. He gave advice to Robert Fulton for his invention of the steam engine. When his eyesight began to fail he invented the bifocal lens and invented a stove named after him — a stove he gave the patent rights away so other could make fortunes from its manufacture. He invented a musical instrument, the Glass Armonica, for which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, George Frideric Handel, Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Strauss, and more than 100 other composers composed works for.

He published pamphlets on public and personal safety including one on how to prevent household fires. He established the first volunteer fire department in the colonies, something thousands of towns and small cites have across the United States today.

When the Revolutionary War began Franklin was assigned to Paris by the Continental Congress to raise money, obtain arms and ask for French naval support — something he did with great success.

He was present in Philadelphia during the Constitutional Convention and added his wisdom to the conclave. It was Franklin who uttered the famous quip when asked by a woman outside of the convention hall what kind of government we will have Franklin replied “Madam, a Republic if we can keep it.”

Franklin was truly a Renaissance man in America’s Age of Enlightenment. With all of his many accomplishments and inventions he should best be known for his contributions to our civil society and our system of self- government — something we have been losing for the past 100 years to the elites, bureaucratic aristocrats and masterminds. So the next time a $100 dollar bill crosses your hand take a few seconds to think of the sage of Philadelphia. If I were asked to describe Franklin in today’s political terms I would call him a Libertarian.

The Great American Flashlight

So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear. That there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system. — Milton Friedman

If you watch any CSI or other police show you will see the detectives and criminalists perusing the crime scene with those little flashlights. They use them to look about the crime scene whether day or night. Those little flashlights are called Maglites and come in many sizes including the favorite of police offices, the 5D battery size than can double as an effective truncheon and illuminate a scene up to 100 feet away. Maglites are the largest selling flashlights in the world with annual sales surpassing $150 million dollars a year.

Many police officers carry Maglites, as they are durable, focusable, and generally produce better output than inexpensive mass market flashlights.

Maglite flashlights have been known to be used as mêlée weapons. Security and police personnel often carry Maglite flashlights as they can be employed as a defensive weapon, especially at night or in dark locations. Police officers will often use Maglites during traffic stops or suspect confrontation, as the beam can disorient an attacker and the flashlight can be swung as a baton as a measure of last resort in self-defense.

Maglites are manufactured by Mag Instrument, Inc. at its plant located in Ontario. Mag Instrument employs 900 people and in 2004 reported sales of $150 million dollars. In 2006 the company began construction of a new $80 million, 700,000-square-foot facility. It was expected to house a total of 2,400 employees after its scheduled opening in 2006. The company's long-term goal was to increase exports to at least half of total sales.

So how did this little flashlight make such a hit and why is its company founder, Tony Maglica, a perfect example of the “American Dream.”

Maglite was introduced in 1979. Constructed principally of anodized 6061 aluminum, they have a variable-focus beam. Maglites are produced in several colors such as black, silver, blue, and red and different finishes. Originally Maglite flashlights used krypton or xenon incandescent bulbs. Current models have LEDs.

Accessories include belt holsters, mounting brackets, colored and glass lenses, attachable fiber optics extensions, higher-powered incandescent bulbs, and LED conversion modules. The Maglite was an improvement over the Kel-Lite, after which the Maglite was patterned.

Company founder Anthony Maglica was born in New York City in 1930, at the beginning of the Great Depression. He moved with his mother to her homeland of Croatia at age two. He was eventually trained as a machinist in Europe.

According to Maglica the WWII occupation of Croatia and the severe policies carried out by the Nazi puppet government of Ante Pavelić and ultranationalist Ustaše thugs were very hard on his mother and him. As poor farmers there were many times they nothing to eat and at one point his mother took a rock and knocked out her gold tooth to use to purchase food. He saw people rounded up and summarily executed or relocated to concentration camps where the eventually died from disease, starvation or brutality.

After the fall of the Nazi puppet government Croatia fell under the sphere of the Soviet Union and the equally brutal policies of Stalin. By the age of twenty Tony was very familiar with the tyranny of Socialism, Fascism and Communism. He wanted nothing to do with any of them and looked toward the West and the United States where he could live free and pursue his own course.

In 1950, Maglica returned to the United States with little knowledge of English but ample faith in the free enterprise system. According to the Business Press of California, he was unable to find anything but sewing work in New York City, so he moved west. He operated a lathe for Long Beach-based Pacific Valve Co. and then A.O. Smith Water Products Co., an East Los Angeles manufacturer of water heaters.

In 1955 he set up a small job shop in his garage in Los Angeles as a side venture. His start-up capital was the $125 he had saved, just enough for a down payment on a $1,000 lathe.

The business was incorporated on September 25, 1974, as Mag Instrument, Inc. By this time, Maglica was producing artillery shells. He also was making components for a flashlight manufacturer. Dismayed by the poor quality of their product, in 1976 he decided to build a better flashlight. At the time, most were cheap and virtually disposable. They had lousy reflectors and weak incandescent bulbs that drained batteries very quickly.

After three years, Maglica came up with a design that was tough and durable, with anodized aluminum housing rather than plastic. Called the Maglite, it was initially marketed toward law enforcement and rescue personnel. The flashlight also was designed to be attractive to civilians. Sportsmen were another early target market.

The Maglite, introduced in 1979, was a critical and commercial success. It won numerous accolades from product design circles as it made its way into home improvement chains and department stores. The Maglite Rechargeable Flashlight System (Mag Charger) was introduced in 1982.

That year, Maglica relocated the firm, which then had 80 employees, to a new 126,000-square-foot factory in Ontario, California, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. Using his tooling experience, Maglica designed the machinery for the plant himself.

According to California's Business Press, a 1984 lawsuit against U.S. retailers who had imported cheap knock-offs of the Maglite flashlights was a turning point for the company in more ways than one. While Mag won the suit, instead of pursuing a cash award, Maglica had the retailers buy five Mag flashlights for every imported copy they had sold. This was an effective way to gain a great deal of shelf space, as the merchants included Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Kmart Corporation.

The original Maglite ran on D cells. In 1984 the company unveiled a smaller flashlight called the Mini Maglite, which ran on AA batteries. A still smaller AAA version came out three years later. The key ring-sized Solitaire flashlight was introduced in 1988. In the mid-1980s, Maglica also developed underwater lighting for eminent Sea Explorer Jacques Cousteau.

In 1987 the company won $3.1 million in a copyright infringement suit against Streamlight, Inc. Another judgment soon followed against Kassnar Imports, Inc. ($2.75 million, 1989) and The Brinkmann Corporation ($1.2 million, 1990). More imitations by potential competitors — some 50 different companies around the world — would follow. Mag spent $17 million from 1986 to 1989 to fight cheap knock-offs. This was more than three times the company's advertising budget, noted the Wall Street Journal.

It was often difficult to collect on such judgments, as manufacturers who lost suits were prone to declaring bankruptcy. Nevertheless, Mag spent millions to aggressively defend its trademarks for the design and manufacturing process of its flashlights. According to Management Review, the United States lagged behind other countries in protecting design features. In 1997, however, the "shape, style and overall appearance" of its Mini Maglite flashlights received copyright protection, followed by the other designs in 2003.

Inc. Magazine reported revenues were in the range of $70 million in 1989. ADWEEK mentioned reports the company held a 25 percent share of a U.S. flashlight market worth $400 million. Mag ended the decade with about 500 employees. Maglica was committed to keeping manufacturing operations in the United States. Extensive use of automation on the factory floor helped keep costs down.

A loyal Republican, Maglica donated 40,000 Mini Maglite flashlights for President George H.W. Bush's 1989 inauguration celebration. They reinforced the "thousand points of light" theme. He also supplied them for the younger Bush's inauguration in 2001. Audience members lit the lights as part of a grand finale.

Although an impassioned advocate for U.S. manufacturing, Maglica remained sensitive to the situation in the former Yugoslavia where he was raised. In 1994, Mag donated 40,000 flashlights inscribed with "Remember Sarajevo" for the closing ceremonies at the Lillehammer Winter Olympics. In 1997, Maglica established the nonprofit Maglite Foundation in Croatia. Its mission was the environmental cleanup of the region, particularly on the island of Zlarin, where Maglica grew up.

Mag entered the European market in 1995. The flashlights fared well even in Germany, known for its "over-engineered" products. They also were accepted in quality-conscious Japan. Total sales were reported at about $240 million per year.

The company was soon looking to expand its manufacturing space. It sought to take over the coating process done to the aluminum flashlights by a Kalamazoo, Michigan company.

99 percent of the Maglite Flashlight is made in the USA. The item not produced here is the bulb. There were no manufactures that produced the halogen bulb used by the original Maglite so Maglica found a company in Germany that was in financial trouble that had the machinery and expertise to make the bulbs he wanted. Maglica decided to buy the machinery and patents and ship the machinery to the United States so he could make the bulbs here. He wanted to make 100% of the flashlights in America.

This is where the U.S. Government stepped in a denied Tony a permit for relocating the bulb making equipment here. This was due to the U.S. Government’s EPA policy on banning the production if incandescent bulbs in the U.S. So Tony had to continue making the bulbs in Germany or switch to the more expensive and less powerful LED lights that are not being made here.

Under U.S. law you do not have to make 100% of a product here to claim it is made in America. The Maglite at 90% qualified for a Made in America sticker, but not in California where it has to be 100%. So Tony was between a rock and a hard place. He could not bring the bulb making equipment here so he could make all of the flashlights in the United States, but qualified to make that claim, except in California.

One day a slip and fall attorney was walking through Home Depot in California when he noticed a display of Maglites with the made in America sticker. He immediately filed a suit against Home Depot and Tony’s company in a California court. Home Depot was forced to remove all of the Maglites with the made in America sticker from their shelves and Tony had to recall all of flashlights in California.

In the first years of the new millennium, Mag Instrument employed 850 people and had 450,000 square feet of manufacturing space scattered across 11 buildings. In November 1999, Mag began leasing another, 300,000-square-foot facility as a stopgap measure to meet increasing demand.

The flashlights were sold in more than 85 countries; exports accounted for 25 percent of total sales, which were reported at between $100 million and $250 million in various sources. The company was valued at $775 million, Maglica's attorney told Ontario's Business Press in 2000 after settling a palimony suit brought by Maglica's longtime companion, Claire Halasz that was settled in an Orange County Court. The Business Press added that the company had produced 39 million flashlights the year before.

In 2003, Mag won a rare monetary award ($113,000) against a Japanese manufacturer, Asahi Electric Corp., which was found to have infringed upon Mag's patent. The 17-year patent on Mag's flashlight, however, was due to expire in March 2005. U.S. Representative Joe Baca was sponsoring a bill to extend the patent for two more years. According to the Business Press of California, part of Mag's appeal was an eight-year gap after the request of a renewal in 1995 in which Mag had no patent protection.

So here we have a virtual immigrant (although born in the United States) who suffered under the brutal, tyrannical regimes of Fascism and Communism and came to the United States in 1950 with no money. He worked hard, invested the little money he had for his dream of building not a better mousetrap, but a superior flashlight. The government gave him nothing, in fact they blocked his attempts to build 100% of the Maglite here and employ more people. When I heard Tony interviewed he claimed he looked on the United States as the freest nation in the world where you could pursue one’s dream. He also stated he never took a dime from the government and built his business through hard work, savings, increasing productivity, hiring good people and making a superior product. This was the American way. For a timeline of the milestone events in the history of the Mag Company click here.

William John Henry Boetcker (1873–1962) was an American religious leader and influential public speaker.

Born in Hamburg, Germany, he was ordained a Presbyterian minister soon after his arrival in the United States as a young adult. The Rev. Boetcker was ordained in Brooklyn, New York.

He quickly gained attention as an eloquent motivational speaker, and is often regarded today as the forerunner of such contemporary "success coaches" as Anthony Robbins.

An outspoken political conservative, Rev. Boetcker is perhaps best remembered for his authorship of a pamphlet entitled The Ten Cannots that emphasizes freedom and responsibility of the individual on himself. Originally published in 1916, it is often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln. The error apparently stems from a leaflet printed in 1942 by a conservative political organization called the Committee for Constitutional Government. The leaflet bore the title "Lincoln on Limitations" and contained some genuine Lincoln quotations on one side and the "Ten Cannots" on the other, with the attributions switched. The genuine Lincoln quotations may have been from an address on March 21, 1864 in which Lincoln said "Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." The mistake of crediting Lincoln for "The Ten Cannots" has been repeated many times since, notably by Ronald Reagan in his address to the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston.

There are several minor variants of the pamphlet in circulation, but the most commonly accepted version appears below:

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
3. You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
4. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
5. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
6. You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
7. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
9. You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
10. And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

Tony Maglica has built his flashlight business on here principles and continues to over a superior product and customer service.

As an aside, tonight is Halloween, my least favorite holiday. It is a night when little gremlins, many in tow by their parents or older siblings go door to door begging for treats (mainly sugar-filled candy) that they feel they are entitled to. If you do not comply with their requests for hand-outs you run the risk of being labeled as Scrooge or suffering vandalism to your property by the older beggars. These little tykes come dressed in some sort of popular costume holding open bags or pillow cases waiting for you to fill them with candy. Some, like Michelle Obama, may claim that you use healthy treats like nuts and fruit. Just try that and see the scornful looks you will get. Instead you have to go to the supermarket or big box store and stock up on those mini candy bars such as Snickers, Baby Ruth, Mounds Bars and other confectionary offerings. In essence you are spreading the wealth by spending your money to subsidize the sweet tooth of the neighbor kids. In some cases, like where I live, kids from other less affluent neighborhoods are bused in to roam the streets in search of their entitled candy. This bodes ill for when they grow up and continue the search for their entitled goods. It’s pure plunder.

Am I a scrooge? No. I am just tired of every year on this date sitting at a table with the garage door open doling candy. I use the garage as my staging area as I get annoyed at the door bell ringing every two minutes and my dogs barking.