Grateful for a pause to reflect and give thanks -- Nov. 21, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

As the Civil War raged in the fall of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln invited citizens to observe “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

People had been giving thanks on American soil since long before we were a country, but Lincoln’s proclamation started the observance of the last Thursday in November as a national day of gratitude.

President Franklin Roosevelt later sought to boost retail sales by moving Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday in November, where it remains.

We’re a nation of firsts, so it may not come as a surprise that several states claim the first Thanksgiving. Texas contends the Feast of the First Thanksgiving was in May 1541 at Palo Duro Canyon near what’s now Amarillo, according to the Library of Congress.

A couple of decades later, French Huguenots gave praise and thanks near Jacksonville, Florida. English colonists sat down with Native Americans for prayer by the Kennebec River in Maine in August 1607.

Virginia marks the first Thanksgiving when colonists offered prayers for a safe arrival in 1619, two years before Pilgrims in Massachusetts had their three-day feast with Native Americans in 1621.

Thanksgiving is more secular now. Most of us pray less and eat and shop more. But we still need a day to pause, reflect and count our blessings – especially now.

A majority of Americans believe the country’s political, racial and class divisions are so severe the United States is two-thirds of the way to the “edge of civil war,” Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service Battleground Civility Poll reported last month.

Republicans blame Democratic political leaders, social media, large newspapers, CNN and MSNBC, while Democrats blame Republican political leaders, social media, Fox News, wealthy special interests and President Donald J. Trump, the poll found. Independents mostly blame social media and Trump, the poll said.

It also showed we’re conflicted. Nearly everyone wants more compromise in Washington, but at the same time we want our own political leaders to stand up to the other side. That’s a recipe for continued strife, not harmony.

Other recent polls show we’re angry when we check the news, angry at a political system that seems to work only for insiders with money and power, like those on Wall Street and in Washington; and angrier than we were a generation or even five years ago. That’s a lot of angry.

This Thanksgiving brings a welcome time-out from televised impeachment hearings and other news stories that provoke us. It’s hard to muster gratitude when you feel like throwing something at the TV or bashing the phone screen that brings the latest news outrage.

We can declare the Thanksgiving dinner table a politics-free zone. Let us savor family and friends and pass the turkey without commenting on the turkeys in Washington.  

Or, let us open a couple of beers. Samuel Adams’s new ad suggests drinkers “Toast Someone” who has made a significant impact on their life. The ad shows several popular comedians toasting and thanking someone who made a difference.

It’s a clever idea, because people are notoriously awkward when they try to put their thanks into words. And yet, decades of research show that people who are grateful and express their gratitude are happier and healthier than others.

In one study, participants were assigned to write and deliver a letter of gratitude to someone they’d not properly thanked. Those who did “immediately exhibited greater happiness,” the Harvard Mental Health Letter reported.

Such studies cannot prove cause and effect, and not all studies show people feeling better about their lives through gratitude. Children and adolescents who wrote and delivered letters of gratitude didn’t feel better about themselves, but the recipients probably did.

The Harvard newsletter summarizes the power of gratitude this way: “Gratitude helps people refocus on what they have instead of what they lack. And, although it may feel contrived at first, this mental state grows stronger with use and practice.”

Gratitude also “helps people connect to something larger than themselves as individuals – whether to other people, nature, or a higher power.”   

In these toxic times, we could all do with stronger connections to other people, nature or a higher power. Happy Thanksgiving.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Canaries, anyone? Our presidential inaugurations quiz -- Jan. 12, 2017 column

At noon on Jan. 20, Donald John Trump will take the 35-word oath of office and become the 45^th president of the United States. The oath is prescribed in the Constitution, but much of what happens during the peaceful transfer of power is rooted in tradition. Get ready for the big show and test your H.Q. – Historical Quotient – with our 10-question quiz. Answers are below.

1             1) Presidential inaugurations used to be on March 4. Why are they on Jan. 20, a day that’s often snowy and bone-chillingly cold?

A.   Washington was rainy and muddy in March, and carriages got stuck.

B.   The Supreme Court picked it.

C.   The 20^th Amendment says so.

D.   It’s when Jupiter aligns with Mars.

2)  Which president gave the longest inaugural address and what happened?

A.   Bill Clinton spoke so long that when he said “in conclusion,” everybody cheered.

B.   Despite a snowstorm, William Henry Harrison in 1841 spoke for an hour and 45 minutes without a hat or coat. He caught pneumonia and died a month later.

C.   Ronald Reagan told so many stories about his old Hollywood days that Nancy Reagan unplugged his microphone.  

3              3) Who gave the shortest inaugural address?

A.   Abraham Lincoln

B.   Franklin Roosevelt

C.   George Washington

                4) How did Thomas Jefferson at his 1801 inauguration break with his predecessors?

A.   Jefferson wore the clothes “of a plain citizen without any distinctive badge of office,” a newspaper reported, unlike the elegant suits with swords favored by Washington and Adams.

B.   Jefferson walked from his rooming house to the Capitol, rather than being driven in a liveried coach.

C.   Both A and B 

5               5) What do canaries have to do with Ulysses S. Grant’s inauguration?    

A)  Canaries – roasted in cream sauce – were served at the inaugural luncheon.

B)   At the frigid inaugural ball, hundreds of canaries in cages were suspended from the ceiling as decoration. The birds froze to death and dropped onto the heads of dancers below.

C)   First lady Julia Grant’s hat was covered with canary feathers, setting off the first fashion trend by a first lady.

6) Who was the first president to ride to and from his inauguration in an automobile?

A.   Warren Harding in 1921, a Packard

B.   William McKinley in 1897, a Stanley Steamer

C.   William Howard Taft in 1909, a Pierce-Arrow

                7) Which president wore a ring containing a lock of Abraham Lincoln’s hair to his inauguration?

A.   Barack Obama

B.   Teddy Roosevelt

C.   Ulysses S. Grant

D.   Nobody. This is fake news.

8              8) Match the president with the theme of his inauguration -- Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

A.   “Celebrating America’s Spirit Together”

B.   “Crusade America”

C.   “An American Journey: Building a Bridge to the 21^st Century”

D.   “Forward Together”

                9) Whose inaugural address was the first to be broadcast on TV?

A.   Dwight Eisenhower

B.   John F. Kennedy

C.   Harry S Truman

               10) When a citizen tried to wish this newly inaugurated president joy in the White House, the president smiled and said: “I would advise you to follow my example on nuptial occasions when I always tell the bridegroom I will wait until the end of the year before offering any congratulations.” Who was the president?

A)  John Calvin Coolidge

B)   Thomas Jefferson

C)   Franklin D. Roosevelt

Answers

1) C -- Ratified in 1933, the 20^th Amendment states: “The terms of the president and vice president shall end at noon on the 20^th day of January . . . the terms of successors shall then begin.”

2) B

3) C – Washington’s second inaugural address was the shortest in history at 135 words. FDR’s fourth inaugural address was 559 words, and Lincoln’s second was 700 words.

4) C

5) B

6) A

7) B – strange but true.

8 – A Bush, B Eisenhower, C Clinton, D Nixon

9       C – in 1949.

10   B

     SOURCES: National Archives, American Presidency Project, www.history.com, Thomas Jefferson Foundation – Monticello, White House Historical Association

--Compiled by Marsha Mercer

A mistake we must never make again -- Column of Dec. 10, 2015

By MARSHA MERCER

Donald J. Trump defended his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the country by citing President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“This is a president highly respected by all; he did the same thing,” Trump said Tuesday on ABC.

I needed a refresher on FDR. What I found was dismaying – and instructive.

Within weeks of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt issued three presidential proclamations declaring Japanese, German and Italian immigrants who were not naturalized citizens “enemy aliens.” The proclamations ordered these residents to turn in their guns, ammunition, cameras, short-wave radios and other items and imposed other restrictions.  

Soon after, in February 1942, FDR then issued Executive Order 9066. It gave the military the power to ban any citizen from a swath of Washington state, California and southern Arizona and led to the relocation -- without any charges or trials -- of 120,000 Japanese Americans.

Many who were herded onto trains bound for 10 internment camps in remote parts of the West and South were American citizens.

Trump insists that he’s not proposing internment camps, but, as we see from FDR’s experience, letting fear dictate policy is a slippery slope. While many Republicans have rightly condemned Trump’s proposal, his fans – even some in elective office -- approve.    

“What he’s saying is no different than the situation during World War II, when we put the Japanese in camps,” New Hampshire state Rep. Al Baldasaro, co-chairman of Trump’s state veterans coalition, told a Manchester TV station.

Instead of likening himself to FDR, Trump should have cited Ronald Reagan, who apologized for the terrible injustice perpetrated in World War II.

“Here we admit a wrong,” President Reagan said when he signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, in which the federal government provided restitution to Japanese Americans who were interned. The government gave $20,000 each to about 60,000 survivors, a pittance for lost years, homes and careers.

You can read Reagan’s quotation at the National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism in World War II just north of the U.S. Capitol. The memorial commemorates not only a shameful chapter in American history but also the loyalty and bravery of Japanese Americans who served the country in war even as their families were being held in camps.

Few tourists find their way to the memorial, in what amounts to a traffic island at the intersection of Louisiana and New Jersey avenues and D Street NW. Few read the 800 names inscribed on stone panels of Japanese American troops who were killed in action.

The Army’s 442^nd Regimental Combat Team was a segregated unit composed entirely of Nisei, first-generation Japanese American citizens. The 442nd fought in eight major campaigns in Europe and became the most highly decorated unit for its size and length of service.

At the center of the memorial, two bronze cranes entangled in barbed wire rise 14 feet. In Japan, the crane is an icon of longevity and good luck. Here, they symbolize the struggle over cruel circumstances. The memorial is intended to tell not only the story of Japanese Americans but of all Americans’ patriotism and perseverance.

Trump justifies his ban on Muslims’ entering the country because we are at war, although there are Muslims serving in our armed forces in the fight against terrorism. 

Some of these heroes rest in Arlington National Cemetery.  

Reagan said in 1988 about the mistreatment of Japanese Americans: “Yes, the nation was then at war, struggling for its survival and it’s not for us today to pass judgment upon those who may have made mistakes while engaged in that great struggle. Yet we must recognize that the internment of Japanese Americans was just that: a mistake.”

The Japanese Americans memorial group raised $13 million to build the memorial, which was dedicated in 2000 and now is part of the National Park Service.

The memorial does not just look back in history. It also offers a way forward, thanks to a quotation from the late Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, D- Hawaii. The son of Japanese immigrants, Inouye enlisted in the Army when the 442^nd was created and lost his right arm fighting in Europe.

“The lessons learned must remain as a grave reminder of what we must not allow to happen again to any group,” Inouye said. Amen.

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Thankfully, we finally agree on Thanksgiving -- Nov. 20, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Thanksgiving, now deeply entrenched in modern American life, got off to a shaky start.

Yes, there were prayers of thanksgiving in Virginia and harvest feasting in Massachusetts in the 17^th century. But the first Congress squabbled over even asking the president to issue a thanksgiving proclamation.

In September 1789, a representative from New Jersey proposed that a committee from the House and Senate visit President George Washington and ask him to recommend to the people a day giving thanks for the many favors of Almighty God, especially the “opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness.”

Two representatives from South Carolina objected -- one to the “mimicking of European customs, where they made a mere mockery of thanksgivings” and the other to interfering in matters beyond the proper scope of Congress, according to an account in The Papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia.

“Why should the president direct the people to do what, perhaps, they have no mind to do?” asked Thomas Tudor Tucker of South Carolina. “They may not be inclined to return thanks for a Constitution until they have experienced that it promotes their safety and happiness.”

Besides, said Tucker, Congress had no business getting involved in religion, and, he added, “If a day of thanksgiving must take place, let it be done by the authority of the several states.”

Despite the opposition, the resolution passed, and a committee did visit Washington, who issued a proclamation naming Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789, a day to unite in “sincere and humble thanks.”

Citizens and churches took to the first Thanksgiving, but the observance wasn’t set in November. Washington later proclaimed Feb. 19, 1795, a “day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” 

The second president, John Adams, issued proclamations for May 9, 1798, and April 25, 1799, but they weren’t officially for thanksgiving. We’d never recognize our feast-football-shop extravaganza in Adams’ day of “solemn humiliation, fasting and prayer.”

But when Thomas Jefferson became president, the proclamations of prayer or thanksgiving ceased. For eight years, he refused to issue any on the ground that it would have infringed on the separation of church and state.

During the War of 1812, Congress asked President James Madison to declare a day of “public humiliation and fasting and prayer to Almighty God for the safety and welfare of these States,” and he chose Jan. 12, 1815. A few months later, Madison named the second Thursday in April 1815 as a day of thanksgiving for the blessing of peace.

After that, no president until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving.

Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States called for a day of fasting and humiliation in 1861 “in view of impending conflict,” and Lincoln proclaimed three days of thanksgiving for battle victories in 1862 and 1863.

For the national Thanksgiving holiday, we can thank Sarah Josepha Hale, an author and editor of Godey’s Lady Book magazine who campaigned tirelessly. By the 1850s, she had successfully lobbied more than 30 states and territories to put Thanksgiving on their calendars. Her goal, though, was a national holiday, which she believed would unify the country.

With the nation torn apart by Civil War, Hale wrote Lincoln on Sept. 28, 1863, asking him to use his executive authority to give Thanksgiving national recognition “to become permanently an American custom and institution.”

Days later, on Oct. 3, Lincoln signed a proclamation, actually written by Secretary of State William Seward, that the last Thursday of November would be “a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

Thanksgiving became our holiday on the last Thursday of November, not by law but by tradition.  

But in 1939, when the last Thursday fell on Nov. 30, with just 24 days before Christmas, retailers begged Franklin D. Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving up a week to lengthen the Christmas shopping season.

FDR proclaimed Thanksgiving to be on Nov. 23. His edict applied only to the District of Columbia and federal workers, but angry letters poured into the White House.

Sixteen states refused to accept the change. Two Thanksgivings were celebrated until 1941, when Congress stepped in.

A representative from Michigan declared that only Congress could change the date, “not the fancy or whim of any president.”

Congress set the federal holiday as the fourth Thursday in November. It may be one of the few things for which we all can be thankful.

©2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Not too late for Obama's conservation legacy -- May 29, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

From the maddeningly crammed streets and vulgar displays along the Virginia Beach oceanfront, it’s only a 40-minute drive to the peaceful and scenic Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Back Bay -- a 9,100-acre barrier island preserve of island marshes, maritime forests and pristine beaches – was established by President Franklin Roosevelt by proclamation in 1938 as a haven and breeding ground for migratory birds and other wildlife.

More than 120,000 people visit the refuge every year, most to watch the 10,000 snow geese and ducks that fly over Back Bay during the peak of the winter migration. Even in the off season, though, there’s plenty to see. Herons and snowy egrets pose majestically. Turtles sun themselves on log rivieras and snakes, naturally, slither. 

On the Blue Goose Express, an open air tram, local history buff Bob Baxter leads visitors back in time. A century ago, the area was dotted with duck hunting lodges, visited by wealthy industrialists. Life-saving stations every seven miles along the coast plucked unfortunate mariners from the sea.

We take a short hike to historic Wash Woods in False Cape State Park, which adjoins Back Bay. All that remains of the remote community of farmers, fishermen and hunters and a church that seated 300 worshippers are the steeple and about a dozen tombstones under whispering live oaks.  

About 47 million people will flee urban noise and stress for the tranquility of national refuges this year. 

Visitors will savor birdsong and unspoiled scenery; they’ll take pictures, swim and camp.

Few may think about how important presidents have been in keeping our wild spaces in citizens’ hands.

Since Ulysses S. Grant signed the bill establishing Yellowstone as the first national park in 1872, presidents have played a crucial role in conservation. 

“I will do everything in my power to protect . . . great natural beauties of this country,” vowed Theodore Roosevelt, who enjoyed being president because he liked having “my hand on the lever.”

The 26^th president set aside 230 million acres in public land and created 150 national forests, 51 bird reserves, four national game preserves, five national parks and 18 national monuments.

He left his successors the 1906 Antiquities Act, which gives the president or Congress the power to designate national monuments. The president can act unilaterally. 

He’s no TR, but Obama still could leave a conservation legacy.

“I’ve preserved more than 3 million acres of public lands for future generations. And I am not finished,” 

Obama said May 21 when he used the Antiquities Act to create the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, protecting half a million acres in New Mexico.

But the congressional resistance Obama faces extends even to conservation. Dozens of bills that would protect lands and wildlife are stalled in Congress.

In February, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed rules to regulate oil and gas production on the national refuge system.  Yes, more than 200 wildlife refuges have existing oil and gas infrastructure and 100 have active oil and gas wells.

The government owns the land but not the oil and gas mineral rights beneath the ground, and the government lacks the authority to regulate private oil and gas development on the refuges. That’s why it has proposed rules.

Noah Matson, vice president of Lands Conservation for Defenders of Wildlife, warned a House panel May 20 of instances on wildlife refuges of oil drums oozing toxic chemicals, oil-topped open waste ponds, abandoned storage tanks and rusted, leaking oil pipes “fixed” with plastic bags and duct tape.

Two Louisiana Republicans on the committee blasted Matson for his “emotional” testimony and for failing to credit the “innovative” fixes.

Republicans also want to curb presidential power under the Antiquities Act, which presidents of both parties have used. Obama has used the act 11 times, starting in November 2011 with the Fort Monroe National Monument in Hampton, Va.  

The House voted in March to limit the president’s power to designate monuments, requiring reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act. The bill has little chance in the current Senate because the Democratic majority is opposed.

When signing the order designating Organ Mountains a national monument, Obama said he understands “our obligation to be good stewards to the next generation – to make sure that our children’s children get the same chance to experience all of these natural wonders.”

He needs to follow TR’s lead, keep his hand on the lever and follow through on his conservation promises.

© 2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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