Happy Presidents' Day
One can be forgiven the impression that “Presidents’ Day” is just another jingoistic inducement for Americans to go shopping for mattresses and GMC trucks. Whereas, in fact, this holiday was inaugurated with profound reverence in 1796, when a grateful new nation honored its first president and revolutionary war hero, George Washington, by making his birthday, February 22, a national holiday.
Of course, it’s a testament to Washington’s extraordinary character and accomplishments that no other president was accorded this honor until it was bestowed on 12 February 1892 upon Abraham Lincoln, the man who “preserved the union through its darkest hour:” the American Civil War. (Granted, lingering sympathy and regret over his assassination at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1965 probably inspired the honor.)
Since then, however, Americans have considered no other president sufficiently worthy; notwithstanding that they have sculpted the faces of two of them (namely, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt) into Mount Rushmore along with those of Washington and Lincoln.
(Indeed, it’s also a testament to the extraordinary character and accomplishments of Dr Martin Luther King Jr., that he’s the only other American to have a federal holiday – the third Monday in January - declared in his name.)
At any rate, in 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which combined Washington and Lincoln’s holiday into the one we celebrate so perversely today....
NOTE: My choice of presidents to grace Mount Rushmore II: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald W. Reagan. Yours?
Presidents Day
Of course, it’s a testament to Washington’s extraordinary character and accomplishments that no other president was accorded this honor until it was bestowed on 12 February 1892 upon Abraham Lincoln, the man who “preserved the union through its darkest hour:” the American Civil War. (Granted, lingering sympathy and regret over his assassination at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1965 probably inspired the honor.)
Since then, however, Americans have considered no other president sufficiently worthy; notwithstanding that they have sculpted the faces of two of them (namely, Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt) into Mount Rushmore along with those of Washington and Lincoln.(Indeed, it’s also a testament to the extraordinary character and accomplishments of Dr Martin Luther King Jr., that he’s the only other American to have a federal holiday – the third Monday in January - declared in his name.)
At any rate, in 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which combined Washington and Lincoln’s holiday into the one we celebrate so perversely today....
NOTE: My choice of presidents to grace Mount Rushmore II: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Lyndon B. Johnson and Ronald W. Reagan. Yours?
Presidents Day
posted by ALH ipinions at 2/18/2008 08:03:00 AM
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2 Comments:
Reagan, maybe F Roosevelt.
I would favor a more exclusive list. Although with T Roosevelt there, that might justify the inclusion of one or two others.
I was one of the 25 people that voted for Anderson 'cause I didn't like Carter and Reagan scared the hookey out of me. Over the years I've become enamored with Reagan.
I'd include F. Roosevelt also and Harry Truman.
For as much airtime as JFK gets no one would put his face up on Mt. Rushmore? He did get us to the moon and got the Soviet Premiere so flustered he beat his shoe on the United Nations podium, and showed the USSR who the big Mac Daddy was when he blockaded Cuba......
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