What would Lincoln say? Hot tweets not cool -- Feb. 8, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

If there’s a president Donald Trump admires more than himself, it must be “the late, great Abraham Lincoln.”

“With the exception of the late, great Abraham Lincoln, I can be more presidential than any president that’s ever held this office,” Trump told a rally last summer.

“Great president,” Trump said of Lincoln last year at a dinner for House Republicans. “Most people don’t even know he was a Republican. Right? Does anyone know? A lot of people don’t know that. We have to build that up a little more.”

For the record, Republicans call themselves the party of Lincoln, and polls show most Americans know Lincoln was a Republican. 

Lincoln’s 209^th birthday will be Monday, but you might miss it. It’s not a federal or even a state holiday most places.

Only Illinois, Connecticut, Missouri and New York still observe it in February, according to the National Constitution Center. Indiana, oddly, celebrates Lincoln’s birthday the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Tourists who happen by the Lincoln Memorial at noon Monday will find a free ceremony open to the public with music, speeches and wreaths. At the Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Kentucky, park staff will lay a wreath.

The following Monday, the third Monday in February, is the federal holiday that commemorates George Washington’s birthday. Congress never officially changed the name, though the holiday became known as Presidents Day.  

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY Abraham Lincoln!!!” Trump shouted via Instagram last year with a picture of the Lincoln Memorial and what was supposed to be a quotation from Lincoln: “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

But those were not Lincoln’s words. The quotation came from an advertisement for a self-help book on aging in 1947, fact checkers reported.

There is a way Trump can honor the 16^th president that has nothing to do with capital letters, exclamation points or fake quotes, however. He can learn from Lincoln the brilliance of the unsent letter.

It’s a lesson any of us can apply in our “Tweet First, Think Later” age. 

When he was angry, Lincoln’s ritual was to write a letter venting his feelings and put the hot letter aside until he cooled off, when he would decide not to send it.

A famous example is his letter to Gen. George Meade after the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Although the Union Army was victorious, Meade had let Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and his army get away.

“I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would . . . have ended the war,” the president wrote Meade.

“As it is the war will be prolonged indefinitely…Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it,” said the anguished commander in chief.

Lincoln knew the power of his words and chose not to demoralize his general in the field. The letter was found decades later among other Lincoln papers, with a notation that it was never signed or sent.

“Now obviously the opposite of that is when President Trump gets angry with somebody, that tweet goes out immediately,” historian Doris Kearns Goodwin told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Jan. 24 in an interview.

“I sometimes think if only he had a hot tweet and a cool tweet, maybe things would be a lot better,” said Goodwin, author of “Team of Rivals” about the political genius of Lincoln in choosing political rivals for his Cabinet.

Lincoln was a master of communication in his time; his Gettysburg Address is recited to this day. Trump is the first president to master social media. But neither Trump nor anyone else could remember the content of his impulsive tweets, as ephemeral as his moods.

On Lincoln’s birthday, we can all be glad Trump admires the president historians consistently rate the best in history.

But if he truly wishes to honor Honest Abe, he – and we -- should stop and think before we fire off that hot tweet.

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Still celebrating Washington's birthday after all these years -- Feb. 9, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Historians trace the first public celebration of George Washington’s birthday to the harsh winter of 1778 at Valley Forge during the Revolutionary War.

That’s when fifers and drummers from Proctor’s Continental Artillery band played for the general at his quarters.

For the first holiday in honor of Washington’s birthday, though, Americans can thank the French.

In 1781, Count Rochambeau granted the French Army in Rhode Island a day off and held a parade to celebrate Washington’s birthday. In those halcyon days before tweets, Washington thanked the count in a letter.

“The flattering distinction paid to the anniversary of my birthday is an honor for which I dare not attempt to express my gratitude,” Washington wrote.

Celebrations continued, but President Washington suffered the slings and arrows of a critical press. A newspaper writer blasted the Washington birthday celebration in Philadelphia in 1793 as a “monarchical farce” that exhibited “every species of royal pomp and parade,” Ron Chernow writes in “Washington: A Life.”

The federal government first gave its employees in Washington a legal day off to celebrate Washington’s birthday in 1879. Some were paid, others not. The government extended the paid holiday to federal employees everywhere in 1885.

History does not record, to my knowledge, when -- or why -- the first American decided to buy a mattress to celebrate the birth of the Father of our Country.

We tend to blame the 20^th century for cashing in on Washington, but the practice started even while he was alive.  

“George Washington surely holds the record for the number of times the image of a historical figure has appeared on goods made for the American home,” art historian William Ayres wrote in an essay on the commercialization of the Washington image from 1776 to 1876 in “George Washington: American Symbol.”

Moderns, prodded by the tourism industry, made Washington’s birthday into a three-day weekend. 

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act in 1968, effective in 1971, celebrating Washington’s Birthday on the third Monday in February; Memorial Day on the last Monday in May and Veterans Day on the fourth Monday in October. Veterans were outraged, and the last was moved back to Nov. 11.

“It will enable families who live some distance apart to spend more time together. Americans will be able to travel farther and see more of this beautiful land of ours. They will be able to participate in a wider range of recreational and cultural activities,” LBJ said at the signing ceremony.

He didn’t mention shopping.

How the third Monday in February became known as Presidents Day is a bit of a mystery. Some blame President Richard Nixon, but his 1971 executive order does not mention Presidents Day.

Congress, in a rare stroke of genius, never officially changed the holiday from George Washington’s Birthday to Presidents Day.  

Most states adopted Presidents Day, even though it dilutes the Washington connection. Illinois has holidays for Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday Feb. 13 and Washington’s on Feb. 20 this year. Virginia sticks with George Washington Day. Alabama commemorates both Washington and Thomas Jefferson’s birthday on Feb. 20, even though Jefferson’s birthday is in April.

One enduring birthday tribute to Washington is the reading of his 1796 Farewell Address on the Senate floor. His letter from “a parting friend” warns the young nation against geographical divisions, political parties and foreign interference in domestic affairs.  

The address was read in 1862 during the Civil War in hopes of building morale, and every year since 1896 a senator has read aloud the entire address – 7,641 words. It usually takes about 45 minutes and often the senator reads to an empty chamber. 

Cynics say the reading is a charade since the Senate ignores Washington’s wisdom.

But his words draw us back to what matters, especially in times that pull us apart.

“The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity must always exalt the just pride of patriotism,” he wrote.

“With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together.”

Happy birthday, Mr. Washington.

©2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Celebrate Washington's birthday -- or not? -- Column of Feb. 11, 2016

By MARSHA MERCER

Poor George.

Most Americans will stay home from work Monday to observe a federal holiday that’s still officially called Washington’s Birthday, though you’d hardly know it.

On Presidents Day, Washington is largely ignored – except when he’s being knocked.

Yes, some states, including Virginia, and some cities and counties still call the third Monday in February Washington Birthday, and there are a few parades, speeches and cake. 

But the holiday is popularly referred to as Presidents Day, even though Congress and the president never changed the name.

Beloved in life, Washington was lionized following his death in 1799. Eulogized as “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” he became a hero clothed in myth.

An early biographer invented the cherry tree story – “I cannot tell a lie” – to demonstrate young George’s high moral character. “McGuffey’s Readers” picked the story up – as did P.T. Barnum, says the Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington, which is maintained by Mount Vernon.

Librarians at Mount Vernon have tracked down other false tales. They’ve also posted on mountvernon.org several Spurious Quotations wrongly attributed to Washington.

It’s good to set the record straight, but one aspect of Washington’s life challenges a favorable view of him. What are we in the 21^st century to make of the Father of our Country having been an active slave owner for 56 years?

It’s hard for us to imagine virtuous George becoming a slave-owner at the tender age of 11 after his father died and willed him a 250-acre farm and 10 slaves. Hard to picture George as a young man adding to his slave holdings or vastly increasing his slave population when he married.

Yet there were 318 slaves living at Mount Vernon at the time of his death.

Slavery is the indelible stain on early America. Slaves quarried and cut the stones for the U.S. Capitol and helped build the White House. Eight presidents owned slaves while serving in office, and four others owned slaves at some point in their lives.

Washington was troubled by slavery but failed to act while he was alive. Only in his will did he leave a provision to free his slaves following the death of Martha Washington. The remaining slaves were hers through her first husband, who had died.

But Washington did more than Thomas Jefferson, who never freed his slaves.

 

We still struggle with how to portray the era, as the controversy last month over a picture book for children demonstrated.

Scholastic Press published and then stopped selling “A Birthday Cake for George Washington,” after critics charged it presented too gentle a view of slave life under Washington.

Scholastic denied it was bowing to pressure but said, “We believe that without more historical background on the evils of slavery than this book for younger children can provide, the book may give a false impression of the reality of the lives of enslaved people and therefore should be withdrawn.”

Pulling a book may put out a public relations fire – although free speech advocates rightly criticized the publisher for self-censorship. But hiding our past won’t help us learn from it.

 

Author Stephen E. Ambrose, writing shortly before his death in 2002, considered how much Washington’s and Jefferson’s ownership of slaves diminished their greatness.

The founders failed to rise above their time and place but they established a system of government that eventually led -- through turmoil, the Civil War and the civil rights movement -- to “legal freedom for all Americans and a movement toward equality,” Ambrose wrote in Smithsonian magazine.

“Washington personifies the word `great.’ In his looks, in his regular habits, in his dress and bearing, in his generalship and his political leadership, in his ability to persuade, in his sure grip on what the new nation needed (above all else, not a king), and in his optimism no matter how bad the American cause looked, he rose above all others,” he wrote.

We in the 21^st century owe a debt to Washington, flawed and human as he was, for his vision of a country where all men are created equal. That genius of an idea started us on the path we are on toward equality for all.

Yes, we should celebrate Washington’s birthday.

© 2016 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Saving MLK Day from crass commercialism -- Jan. 9, 2014 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. got off to a rocky start, to put it mildly.

In 1986, its first year, only about half the states observed the holiday. In King’s hometown of Atlanta, boxing promoter Don King celebrated the new holiday and the civil rights leader who dedicated his life to nonviolence with, you guessed it, a fight night.

The seven-hour evening, supposedly a tribute, was a “grotesque farce,” author Jack Newfield wrote in “The Life and Crimes of Don King: The Same of Boxing in America.”

Don King “put on seven fights with out-of-shape heavyweights who weighed an aggregate of 3,212 pounds. Every fight stank,” Newfield wrote. In the main event between Tim Witherspoon and Tony Tubbs, Tubbs “acted like he was trying to honor Dr. King by winning the Nobel Peace Prize in the ring.”

After such an unpromising start, it’s remarkable that the King holiday has mostly risen above the crass commercialism that plagues our other holidays.

Retailers seem far more willing to use Presidents Day – originally commemorating the February birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln -- to sell us cars, mattresses and TVs. In contrast, the King holiday summons us to reflect and to give our time making our communities better.

On Jan. 20, bells will toll, churches will hold services and hundreds of thousands of Americans will spend at least part of the King holiday volunteering on community service projects.  

King’s statement that “Everybody can be great because everybody can serve” animates the day.  People young and old will clean up streams, deliver meals, spruce up schools and community centers, collect food and clothing and sign up mentors, among other things. 

But just as it took years to create the holiday, it took years for the holiday officially to become a day of national service.

Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, first introduced legislation to establish a holiday honoring King four days after he was assassinated in Memphis in 1968. In 1983, Congress approved the holiday, after ugly opposition in the Senate from Jesse Helms.

The North Carolina Republican filibustered, charging that King was a Marxist who had Communist connections. Helms distributed 300 pages of documents, which Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York famously threw to the Senate floor, stomped on and called “a packet of filth.”

On Nov. 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed the bill making the third Monday in January the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday, starting in 1986. Not until 1999, though, did all 50 states observe it.

Even today, states observe the holiday in different ways. For years, Virginia celebrated  King and Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson on the same day. In 2000, the state legislature separated the holidays, and Virginia state offices now are closed for King on the third Monday in January and Lee and Jackson on the preceding Friday. 

Alabama celebrates Lee and King together, then Confederate Memorial Day in April and the birthday of Jefferson Davis in June.

As for the day of service, a couple of weeks after the first federal King holiday in 1986, sociologist Marion J. Levy Jr. of Princeton University wrote a letter to The New York Times.

“I propose we declare the holiday a ‘day on,’ rather than a ‘day off,’” the professor wrote. His idea was that everyone would work on the holiday and those above the poverty line would send their day’s pay to a special fund benefiting housing, education and other projects.

Levy was rowing against the tide when he suggested that people give up not only their day off but also their wages – but his idea of the holiday as a “`day on, rather than a ‘day off’” stuck. The phrase appears frequently in connection with the day of service.

In 1994, Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act, creating the national day of service, and President Bill Clinton signed it.   

It’s a day when we all can be great because we can serve.  And that’s a real tribute to the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. 

© 2014 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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