The statues of Brigham Young and Philo T Farnsworth currently reside in a place of honor in the national statuary hall in the US Capitol. The statue Philo Farnsworth will be replaced by a statue of Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon in August 2020 to mark the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Dr. Cannon was was a leader of the Utah women’s suffrage Association and testified in US congressional committees and was a featured speaker at national suffrage conventions. She was also the first woman in the country to serve as a state senator.
After the Utah state legislature approved swapping statues, The Martha Hughes Cannon Statue Oversight Committee is requesting proposals from publicly accessible locations that would provide a permanent phone for the Farnsworth statue. Requests for proposals are to be submitted until January 1, 2020.
Bloggers on this event have expressed a variety of perspectives about taking the statue of the only man in the world to invent television out of the US Capitol and replacing it with a new bronze statue of a woman from Utah who worked for women's suffrage and who was the first woman state senator in America. One blogger suggested the BYU Eyring Science Center because Philo attended Brigham Young Academy, BYU, and is buried in Provo. Another suggested creating a museum for the victims who have had their reputations trashed by the politically correct crowd and build it right next to the Supreme Court in Washington DC. Another blogger, who considers sarcasm to be an art form, suggested with the statue be thrown in the dump because that is the most honest place based on how society now values anything contributed by dead white guys. One man, identified as Video Andy, suggested the Philo Farnsworth museum in Rigby Idaho.
I am with Andy. Although Philo Farnsworth was born in Beaver, Utah, but soon moved to Rigby, Idaho where he was a classmate of my father, Asael Tall and his identical twin brother, Aldon. My grandfather, WILLIAM Tall, was not fond of Philo Farnsworth. He was frequently called the Farnsworth home whenever Philo blew up the carbonic acid batteries of the Delco electric system that my grandfather sold and maintained at that time. I remember their recollection of Philo's descriptions of how to direct streams of electrons to make images in a vacuum tube. He wrote notes on this idea and compared controlling beams of excited electrons to how Idaho farmers control water to irrigate fields of potatoes. Philo wrote those notes on the blackboards in the basement of Rigby High School as he explained his ideas to his classmates, then transferred them to his notebook. These notes were later used to successfully defend Philo and his company, Philco, in a patent claim against RCA where Philo was clearly identified as the owner of the patent and clearly became the invention of television. Imagine that, a boy from Rigby invented television? Not that Philo was the only young man from Rigby to ever do remarkable things.
The first television tubes were actually given to Rigby High School and kept in a place of honor in a glass case in the study hall, where I was not kept in a place of honor. My time in study hall was actually an elective for student government preparation rather than an opportunity to review my misdeeds as the casual reader of this column might surmise. Still,I did not appreciate the significance of those artifacts and assumed that most study halls had similar glass cases displaying dusty old tubes from times gone by. Sometimes, I am smart too slow. Little did I know that the Rigby High School Study Hall was truly unique. Nowhere else in the the whole world was a study hall like the one I was allowed to use in 1965.
The Philo T Farnsworth statue belongs in Rigby, Idaho. As the welcome signs at either end of Rigby proclaim, "Welcome to RIGBY, THE BIRTHPLACE OF TELEVISION". The Philo T. Farnsworth and Pioneer Museum is too small for an 8 foot bronze statue. From my perspective, the statue belongs in a nice glass case in a place of honor in the two story atrium at the entry to the Rigby High School where it can be an inspiration to generations of students for years to come until it is replaced by some historical Rigby native who is more politically correct.
You will know that my idea did not fly if you see an 8 foot statue of Philo T. Farnsworth standing by the roadside with a cardboard sign saying, "WILL WORK FOR SHELTER".
Ever Vigilant,
Roger H. Tall, M.D
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