Abraham Lincoln Goes On To Glory

 

Abraham Lincoln Photo Portrait, early 1865 Alexander Gardner

Today marks the 160th anniversary of the assassination (1865) of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington. He was taken across the street to the home of William and Anna Peterson where died shortly after 7:00 a.m. the following morning (April 15). The theatre remained closed for over a century. It reopened in 1968 as a performance venue and national historic site that included the Peterson House. Today it is owned by the National Park Service and operated through a partnership agreement with the Ford's Theatre Society.

Ford's Theatre 514 10th Street NW, Washington, DC

President Lincoln and his son, Tad. February 5, 1865

For more information on this event, the place where it occurred, and its impact on the American experience explore the Ford's Theatre National Historic Site web page.

Lincoln Memorial, The Mall, Washington

Sources


Photographs and Illustrations:

Ford Theatre photographs, Ford's Theatre National Historic Site
Lincoln photograph, Alexander Gardner. Abraham Lincoln with his son Tad (Thomas), February 5, 1865. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (140) Digital ID # cph-3a05994

Lincoln Memorial, Official White House Photo, Chuck Kennedy, 2013, public domain

Remembering George Washington On His 293rd Birthday

 

George Washington,  Gilbert Stuart, American, 1796

We had a federal holiday a few days ago commemorating Washington's birthday but it was simply another one of those government manipulations to provide us with three-day weekends. Washington was actually born on February 22, 1732. Perhaps a few days don't matter much in a nation that has lost its appreciation for history and reality over the past decades. Still there are some personalities and events worthy of authentic remembrance. George Washington, fondly recalled as the Father of His Country, is one of them. Here is what Scott Johnson (Powerline) has to say about the subject:

Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington's greatness was the rarest and most needed. At this remove in time it is also the hardest to comprehend.

Today as we contend with the contemporary equivalent of "the Babylonish empire," let us send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days for this indispensable man.

Johnson originally posted these words in 2006 and it's worth reading the rest of his brief and notable remarks. Very uplifting.

Learn more about the young adventurer who became the father of his country at the following sources:

George Washington Birthplace National Monument

 Washington's birthplace - the original site is in the foreground

Fort Necessity National Battlefield

Valley Forge National Historical Park

Independence National Historical Park

George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, Museum, and Gardens

Washington Monument

George Washington Masonic Memorial

In 1747, when Washington was 15 years old, he accompanied his friend, George William Fairfax, on a surveying expedition to the Virginia - now West Virginia - frontier and the headwaters of Patterson Creek, a tributary of the South Branch of the Potomac River. I got to know well over a thousand feet of Patterson Creek intimately over the span of a quarter century. The creek was a great source of recreation, leisure, study and contemplation. It was a powerful force in shaping my future. I learned of Washington's trip there long after I'd left the place but I still think about what it would have been like sitting on the creek bank in 1960 and suddenly seeing a teenage boy and his companions in colonial dress come slogging around the bend about 50 yeards downriver. That small stretch of Patterson Creek is a sacred place and although I havent sat on its bank or skipped stones across its quiet pools for fifty years this landscape I remember still speaks to me about our imaginary conversation. I'm quite sure that young Washington would have no expectation of becoming in the words of his eulogy delivered by Henry Lee, "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his contrymen." 

In my experience every sacred place opens dimensions and portals as time exposes layers of its past. Listen carefully next time you stand alone immersed in the experience of your sacred place. There you recall your personal stories. Add  imagination and who knows what you may encounter on the banks and bends of your river through time.








Sources


Illustrations:
Stuart portrait, a copy known as the Lansdowne Portrait, hangs in the White House. The original is located in the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Postcards are from the author's archive.

Washington's Birthday: Our Unbirthday Holiday

 

Regardless of what you may hear on the street today's holiday commemorates Washington's birthday. As the official federal government page states,

This holiday is designated as "Washington’s Birthday" in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code, which is the law that specifies holidays for Federal employees. Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names, it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in the law.

At one time the nation had a Washington's Birthday holiday on February 22, the actual day of the man's birth, but that changed in 1971 when the "Monday holiday rule" took effect. The rule was a postlude to a torturous twent year saga of federal bickering, ineptitude, and state's rights issues over the national failure to honor our presidents, especially Abraham Lincoln, with their very own holiday. The fallout left us with what is in reality a Washington's Unbirthday holiday and a three-day weekend. Honest Abe didn't make the official cut.

That said, American capitalists, never keen to let a good shopping opportunity pass, liked the idea of a President's Day, especially one that could be stretched over a full week . They saw the advantage of the patriotic fervor generated by matching silhouettes of Lincoln - log cabins - and Washington - axes and cherries - positioned over merchandise and big red signs reading "SALE." The concept caught on. Today, about all Americans have left with the third Monday in February is the opportunity to buy stuff, mostly stuff they don't need. On the federal level, this not only leaves us with nothing for Old Abe but also nothing for the other presidents save George and his big unbirthday.

So what is one to do?

Perhaps it's best to forget the issues of a misnomer and the neglected presidents and return to Lincoln and Washington as our February presidents. And they have more in common as presidents who share the quality of American exceptionalism, a term we've been hearing more often these days as the republic drifts ever deeper into its golden years.

I elected some years ago to honor these gentlemen on their respective birthdays and celebrate this Monday federal holiday with an Old Fashioned and the pop and crack of a perfect fire. In time my conversations with the faces in the fire will help me organize a tribute post to George Washington that will appear on his birthday, February 22. We owe it to this statesman who postponed a well-earned retirement to become our first chief executive and shaper of what became known as the Office of the President of the United States.




Sources
Text:
federal holiday quote, opm.gov/policy-data-oversight

Abraham Lincoln: An Honest Man Enshrined For Eternity

Abraham Lincoln Photo Portrait, early 1865 Alexander Gardner

Today marks the 159th anniversary of the assassination (1865) of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington. He was taken across the street to the home of William and Anna Peterson where died shortly after 7:00 a.m. the following morning (April 15). The theatre remained closed for over a century. It reopened in 1968 as a performance venue and national historic site that included the Peterson House. Today it is owned by the National Park Service and operated through a partnership agreement with the Ford's Theatre Society.

Ford's Theatre 514 10th Street NW, Washington, DC

President Lincoln and his son, Tad. February 5, 1865

For more information on this event, the place where it occurred, and its impact on the American experience explore the Ford's Theatre National Historic Site web page.

Lincoln Memorial, The Mall, Washington

Sources


Photographs and Illustrations:

Ford Theatre photographs, Ford's Theatre National Historic Site
Lincoln photograph, Alexander Gardner. Abraham Lincoln with his son Tad (Thomas), February 5, 1865. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (140) Digital ID # cph-3a05994

Lincoln Memorial, Official White House Photo, Chuck Kennedy, 2013, public domain

FDR: A Final Day In His Beloved Warm Springs, Georgia

 

Official portrait of FDR              Frank O. Salisbury, 1947

On this day 79 years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia. It was a place and community he had come to love over the twenty years since his first visit there to treat his polio.

I wish I could be here more.

The Little White House, Warms Springs State Historic Site, Georgia

William Katz, a talented participant-observers of our American experience, said this about Roosevelt at his blog, Urgent Agenda, in 2011:

Roosevelt, of course, was the only American president to be elected for more than two terms. He had just started his fourth when he died. He was succeeded by Harry S. Truman who, contrary to political myth, was not an obscure former senator from Missouri, but a prominent former senator who'd been on the cover of TIME in 1943.One can debate Roosevelt's policies, but he was, as Ed Murrow described him, the central pivot of 12 years of American history, leading the nation through the Depression and World War II. He is considered by most historians one of the great American presidents, often ranked third behind Lincoln and Washington. His policies did not end the Depression, but Roosevelt gave Americans a sense of hope and a sense that he cared, and that he understood the impact of the economic disaster on the ordinary American.

FDR invented the modern presidency, for better or worse. He was the first to use mass media, addressing the nation frequently by radio in his fireside chats. He was the first to fly to a political convention. And he became an internationalist in an age of isolationism. He was not a great intellect, nor was he impeccably honest (to put it mildly), but it is hard to think of American history without him. He had the sense to appoint Republicans to high positions to help fight World War II, symbolic acts that established, at least for a time, a bipartisan foreign- and defense policy. His bond with Winston Churchill during World War II was one of modern history's great partnerships.

The decision, in 1944, to replace the naive left-wing vice president, Henry Wallace, with Harry Truman on the Democratic ticket was an act of political genius, although the Congressional leadership probably had more to do with it than Roosevelt himself. And that act, based on Truman's actual performance in the Senate, demonstrated the enormous value of listening to people who actually know a candidate for high office. It was a far cry from today's "democratic" primary system, where people vote for candidates who may have little actual experience, and who have not been examined by those who understand the pressures of the presidency.

It's remarkable to think that in 1944 the Democratic Party had on its ticket Roosevelt and Truman, two men later seen as great presidents. Compare please to today.

A funeral train carried the late president from Warm Spring to Washington, then on to Hyde Park, New York, for burial at Springwood, his birthplace and beloved life-long home. Hundreds of thousands lined the tracks as the train made its journey. Over 500,ooo watched the coffin travel from Washington's Union Station to the White House.

Funeral procession, April 14, 1945

Any Franklin D. Roosevelt story would be incomplete without reference to his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt. Her story is preserved at Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, two miles east of Springwood. For more information on the Little White House and Warm Spring State Historic Site, go here and here.






Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
portrait, White House Historical Association, public domain
funeral caisson, Library Of Congress, Prints and photographs division, public domain

The Real Washington's Birthday

 

George Washington,  Gilbert Stuart, American, 1796

We had a federal holiday a few days ago commemorating Washington's birthday but it was simply another one of those government manipulations to provide us with three-day weekends. Washington was actually born on February 22. Perhaps a few days don't matter much in a nation that has lost its appreciation for history and reality over the past decades. Still there are some personalities and events worthy of authentic remembrance. George Washington, fondly recalled as the Father of His Country, is one of them. Here is what Scott Johnson (Powerline) has to say about the subject:

Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington's greatness was the rarest and most needed. At this remove in time it is also the hardest to comprehend.

Today as we contend with the contemporary equivalent of "the Babylonish empire," let us send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days for this indispensable man.

Johnson originally posted these words in 2006 and it's worth reading the rest of his brief and notable remarks. Very uplifting.

Learn more about the young adventurer who became the father of his country at the following sources:

George Washington Birthplace National Monument

 Washington's birthplace - the original site is in the foreground

Fort Necessity National Battlefield

Valley Forge National Historical Park

Independence National Historical Park

George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, Museum, and Gardens

Washington Monument

George Washington Masonic Memorial

In 1747, when Washington was 15 years old, he accompanied his friend, George William Fairfax, on a surveying expedition to the Virginia - now West Virginia - frontier and the headwaters of Patterson Creek, a tributary of the South Branch of the Potomac River. I got to know well over a thousand feet of Patterson Creek intimately over the span of a quarter century. The creek was a great source of recreation, leisure, study and contemplation. It was a powerful force in shaping my future. I learned of Washington's trip there long after I'd left the place but I still think about what it would have been like sitting on the creek bank in 1960 and suddenly seeing a teenage boy in colonial dress come slogging around the bend about 50 yeards downriver. That small stretch of Patterson Creek is a sacred place and although I havent sat on its bank or skipped stones across its quiet pools for fifty years this landscape I remember still speaks to me about our imaginary conversation. I'm quite sure that young Washington would have no expectation of becoming in the words of his eulogy delivered by Henry Lee, "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his contrymen." 

In my experience every sacred place opens dimensions and portals as time exposes layers of its past. Listen carefully next time you stand slone in the "riffles of your favorite creek. You will hear your own stories there. Some of you may have your own talk with George. 








Sources


Illustrations:
Stuart portrait, a copy known as the Lansdowne Portrait, hangs in the White House. The original is located in the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Postcards are from the author's archive.

Washington's Birthday 2024: To Celebrate A Founding Father

Regardless of what you may hear on the street today's holiday commemorates Washington's birthday. As the official federal government page states,

This holiday is designated as "Washington’s Birthday" in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code, which is the law that specifies holidays for Federal employees. Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names, it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in the law.

At one time the nation had a Washington's Birthday holiday on February 22, the actual day of the man's birth but that changed in 1971 when the "Monday holiday rule" took effect. The rule was a postlude to a torturous twent year saga of federal bickering, ineptitude, and state's rights issues over the national failure to honor our presidents, especially Abraham Lincoln, with their very own holiday. The fallout left us with what is in reality a Washington's Unbirthday holiday and a three-day weekend. Honest Abe didn't make the official cut.

That said, American capitalists, never keen to let a good shopping opportunity pass, liked the idea of a President's Day, especially one that could be stretched over a full week . They saw the advantage of the patriotic fervor generated by matching silhouettes of Lincoln - log cabins - and Washington - axes and cherries - positioned over merchandise and big red signs reading "SALE." The concept caught on. Today, about all Americans have left with the third Monday in February is the opportunity to buy stuff, mostly stuff they don't need. On the federal level, this not only leaves us with nothing for Old Abe but also nothing for George on his birthday. What this day gives us is the option to celebrate a rather mediocre "Every President Gets A Trophy Day."  

So what is one to do?

Perhaps it's best to forget the issues of a misnomer and the neglected presidents and return to Lincoln and Washington as our February celebrants. And they have more in common as presidents who share the quality of American exceptionalism, a term we've been hearing more often these days as the republic drifts ever deeper into its golden years.

I elected some years ago to honor these gentlemen on their respective birthdays and celebrate this Monday federal holiday with an Old Fashioned and the pop and crack of a perfect fire. In time my conversations with the faces in the fire will help me organize a tribute post to George Washington that will appear on his birthday, February 22. We owe it to this statesman who postponed a well-earned retirement to become our first chief executive and shaper of what became known as the Office of the President of the United States.




Sources
Text:
federal holiday quote, opm.gov/policy-data-oversight

Honest Old Abe/The People's Choice

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, was born on this day 215 years ago at Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. Today, his grand marble likeness gazes down on millions of visitors drawn to his memorial on the Mall in Washington.

As visitors climb the marble steps, pass marble columns, and enter the chamber of the Lincoln Memorial, they are awestruck by Daniel Chester French’s enormous marble statue of Abraham Lincoln. To what part of the Georgia marble figure is the eye drawn first? Possibly, the serious look on Lincoln’s face will remind the visitor of the critical time of Civil War through which the president guided our nation. Maybe the reeds wrapped together in the arms of Lincoln’s chair will prompt the visitor to remember the way that Lincoln wanted to keep us bound together as one nation.

If you want to settle into an evening with Lincoln and his age, your choice of titles will number in the thousands and in a variety of media. I am inclined to recommend Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years. It is available as a one-volume abridgement of the original six-volume version of the biography. Not always accurate, not always "organized" as a traditional biography, Sandburg tells the story of Lincoln in the same manner a wise elder would deliver oral histories to those who wonder who they are and what they may become. It's romantic, rich, warm, organic, meandering, sometimes stormy, sometimes calm. I think the approach works well because the Lincoln story is in so many respects the American story. Also keep in mind that although well-known as a poet Sandburg soon was revered in the U.S. as a poet/writer for the people once the first volumes appeared . With that in mind, I believe Old Abe would have been proud to select a writer of popular history and culture as his official biographer.

Abraham Lincoln Photo Portrait, early 1865 Alexander Gardner

As you can see from the photo below, Lincoln and I go back a bit. That picture was taken in the spring of 1952 - complete with what would become my signature pose with binoculars - during my first visit to Washington. It began a long association with Old Abe and his American experience that peaked during the last thirty years of my career. What an honor it was to know him well and work to preserve his story for future generations visiting our national parks. For more about Abe Lincoln's early years at Sinking Spring and Knob Creek farms visit the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park website.

Beyond the photographs worth a thousand words we sometimes find a thousand words worth far more than the images and snippets we'll see and hear today about Abraham Lincoln. In 1959, the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, Sandburg was asked to address a joint session of Congress on Old Abe's legacy. Here is his conclusion:

The people of many other countries take Lincoln now for their own. He belongs to them. He stands for decency, honest dealing, plain talk, and funny stories. "Look where he came from—don‘t he know all us strugglers and wasn‘t he a kind of tough struggler all his life right up to the finish?" Something like that you can hear in any nearby neighborhood and across the seas. Millions there are who take him as a personal treasure. He had something they would like to see spread everywhere over the world. Democracy? We can‘t say exactly what it is, but he had it. In his blood and bones he carried it. In the breath of his speeches and writings it is there. Popular government? Republican institutions? Government where the people have the say-so, one way or another telling their elected rulers what they want? He had the idea. It‘s there in the lights and shadows of his personality, a mystery that can be lived but never fully spoken in words.

Our good friend the poet and playwright Mark Van Doren, tells us, ―To me, Lincoln seems, in some ways, the most interesting man who ever lived . . . He was gentle but this gentleness was combined with a terrific toughness, an iron strength.‖ How did he say he would like to be remembered? His beloved friend, Representative Owen Lovejoy of Illinois, had died in May of 1864, and friends wrote to Lincoln and he replied that the pressure of duties kept him from joining them in efforts for a marble monument to Lovejoy. The last sentence of his letter saying, ―Let him have the marble monument along with the well assured and more enduring one in the hearts of those who love liberty, unselfishly, for all men.‖ So perhaps we may say that the well assured and most enduring memorial to Lincoln is invisibly there, today, tomorrow and for a long time yet to come in the hearts of lovers of liberty, men and women who understand that wherever there is freedom there have been those who fought and sacrificed for it.

Powerful words. And if your interested in hearing Sandburg's complete address it's available here. If you have never heard him speak, at least take a few minutes to experience the compelling voice and style of a master orator, one of our most beloved poets and perceptive participant-observers of the American experience.





Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Lincoln photograph, Gardner collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Abraham Lincoln statue, commons.wikimedia.org
Lincoln Memorial, personal photo 1952, author's archive


Text:
Title, from an 1860 campaign lapel ribbon, Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection

First quotation, National Park Service, Lincoln Memorial webpage, www.nps.gov/linc

Remembering Ike: General, President, Farmer, First Citizen Of The World

This weekend we recall the birthday (October 14) and significance of Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States (1953-61). 

Dwight Eisenhower's high school classmates knew he liked history and they envisioned him as a history professor at Yale. His older brother, Edgar, impressed them as well. They thought he would become President.

Dwight D. Eisenhower Official Presidential Portrait

There was no mention of Dwight Eisenhower's birthday in the long list of newsy bookmarks I review almost every day. That's a bit surprising because his stature among American presidents has increased greatly since he left office portrayed by many as an aging, mediocre, and out of touch executive. The C-SPAN Presidential Historians Survey of 2021 ranked him #5  behind Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt. The following quote from the Eisenhower National Historic Site credits him with these top five accomplishments:

1. He kept the nation at peace:

2, He ended the Korean War:

3. He balanced the budget not once, but three times:

4. He sponsored and signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956:

5. He sponsored and signed the Civil Rights Bill of 1957:

Eisenhower was confronted with major Cold War crises every year he was in office: Korea, Vietnam, Formosa, Suez, Hungary, Berlin, and the U-2. While more than once America seemed on the brink of war and those around him clamored to drop the Bomb, Eisenhower always kept a level head. He dealt calmly and rationally with each situation, always finding a solution that avoided war without diminishing America's prestige.

He alone had the prestige to persuade Americans to accept a negotiated peace and convince the Chinese that failure to reach an agreement would lead to dire consequences. Eisenhower considered this to be his greatest presidential accomplishment.

Despite much pressure to do otherwise, he also refused to cut taxes and raise defense spending. His fiscal policy contributed to the prosperity of the 1950's.

This gave birth to America's interstate highway system. Eisenhower worked hard to get the bill passed and it was his favorite piece of legislation.

This was the first civil rights bill since Reconstruction. Much to Eisenhower's dismay, Congress amended the bill and critically weakened its effectiveness.

 

Here are some links to the home places that were significant to Dwight Eisenhower. Each of them provides additional biographical information for readers who may want to learn more about one of our most significant presidents.

Eisenhower Birthplace, Denison, Texas

Born in 1890, Dwight David Eisenhower spent his first two years living in the small railroad town of Denison, Texas. Visit the Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site webpage for more information.

Eisenhower Family Hone, Abilene, Kansas

Eisenhower spent his formative years from 1892 to 1911 in the old cow town of Abilene, Kansas. He always called Abilene his hometown. It is the site of the Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum & Boyhood Home.

Eisenhower may have appreciated the meaning and value of "home," but as a military careerist he and his wife, Mamie, often had nowhere to call their own. Their roaming ended in 1950 when they purchased a farm at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It was in fact the only home they ever owned. Today, the National Park Service maintains the home and farm as the Eisenhower National Historic Site.

Sources:
title reference, "first citizen of the world," eulogy, President Richard M. Nixon, 1969, Dwight Eisenhower page, Wikipedia.com 

first quotation, Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum, and Boyhood Home website.

A President Enters The Ages

 

Abraham Lincoln Photo Portrait, early 1865 Alexander Gardner

Today marks the 158th anniversary of the assassination (1865) of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington. He was taken across the street to the home of William and Anna Peterson where died shortly after 7:00 a.m. the following morning. The theatre remained closed for over a century. It reopened in 1968 as a performance venue and national historic site that included the Peterson House. Today it is owned by the National Park Service and operated through a partnership agreement with the Ford's Theatre Society.

Ford's Theatre 514 10th Street NW, Washington, DC

President Lincoln and his son, Tad. February 5, 1865

For more information on this event, the place where it occurred, and its impact on the American experience explore the Ford's Theatre National Historic Site web page.

Lincoln Memorial, The Mall, Washington

Sources


Photographs and Illustrations:
Ford Theatre photographs, Ford's Theatre National Historic Site
Lincoln photograph, Alexander Gardner. Abraham Lincoln with his son Tad (Thomas), February 5, 1865. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (140) Digital ID # cph-3a05994

Lincoln Memorial, Official White House Photo, Chuck Kennedy, 2013, public domain

The President Who Loved Warm Springs, Georgia

 

Official portrait of FDR              Frank O. Salisbury, 1947

On this day 78 years ago, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia. It was a place and community he had come to love over the twenty years since his first visit there to treat his polio.

I wish I could be here more.

The Little White House, Warms Springs State Historic Site, Georgia

William Katz, a talented participant-observers of our American experience, said this about Roosevelt at his blog, Urgent Agenda, in 2011:

Roosevelt, of course, was the only American president to be elected for more than two terms. He had just started his fourth when he died. He was succeeded by Harry S. Truman who, contrary to political myth, was not an obscure former senator from Missouri, but a prominent former senator who'd been on the cover of TIME in 1943.

One can debate Roosevelt's policies, but he was, as Ed Murrow described him, the central pivot of 12 years of American history, leading the nation through the Depression and World War II. He is considered by most historians one of the great American presidents, often ranked third behind Lincoln and Washington. His policies did not end the Depression, but Roosevelt gave Americans a sense of hope and a sense that he cared, and that he understood the impact of the economic disaster on the ordinary American.

FDR invented the modern presidency, for better or worse. He was the first to use mass media, addressing the nation frequently by radio in his fireside chats. He was the first to fly to a political convention. And he became an internationalist in an age of isolationism. He was not a great intellect, nor was he impeccably honest (to put it mildly), but it is hard to think of American history without him. He had the sense to appoint Republicans to high positions to help fight World War II, symbolic acts that established, at least for a time, a bipartisan foreign- and defense policy. His bond with Winston Churchill during World War II was one of modern history's great partnerships.

The decision, in 1944, to replace the naive left-wing vice president, Henry Wallace, with Harry Truman on the Democratic ticket was an act of political genius, although the Congressional leadership probably had more to do with it than Roosevelt himself. And that act, based on Truman's actual performance in the Senate, demonstrated the enormous value of listening to people who actually know a candidate for high office. It was a far cry from today's "democratic" primary system, where people vote for candidates who may have little actual experience, and who have not been examined by those who understand the pressures of the presidency.

It's remarkable to think that in 1944 the Democratic Party had on its ticket Roosevelt and Truman, two men later seen as great presidents. Compare please to today.

 

A funeral train carried the late president from Warm Spring to Washington, then on to Hyde Park, New York, for burial at Springwood, his birthplace and beloved life-long home. Hundreds of thousands lined the tracks as the train made its journey. Over 500,ooo watched the coffin travel from Washington's Union Station to the White House.

Funeral procession, April 14, 1945

Any Franklin D. Roosevelt story would be incomplete without reference to his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt. Her story is preserved at Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, two miles east of Springwood. For more information on the Little White House and Warm Spring State Historic Site, go here and here.






Sources


Text:
title, 1937 quote


Photos and Illustrations:
portrait, White House Historical Association, public domain
funeral caisson, Library Of Congress, Prints and photographs division, public domain

The 291st Birthday Of George Washington

George Washington       Gilbert Stuart, American, 1796

We had a federal holiday two days ago commemorating Washington's birthday, but it was simply another one of those government manipulations to provide us with three-day weekends. Washington was actually born on February 22. Perhaps a few days don't matter much in a nation that has lost its appreciation for history and reality over the past decades. Still, there are some personalities and events worthy of authentic remembrance. George Washington, fondly recalled as the Father of His Country, is one of them. Here is what Scott Johnson (Powerline) has to say about the subject:

Of all the great men of the revolutionary era to whom we owe our freedom, Washington's greatness was the rarest and most needed. At this remove in time it is also the hardest to comprehend.

Today as we contend with the contemporary equivalent of "the Babylonish empire," let us send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days for this indispensable man.

Johnson originally posted these words in 2006. Read the rest of his brief and notable remarks.  Very uplifting.

Learn more about the young adventurer who became the father of his country at the following sources:


George Washington Birthplace National Monument

George Washington's birthplace - the original site is in the foreground

Fort Necessity National Battlefield

Valley Forge National Historical Park

Independence National Historical Park

George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, Museum, and Gardens

Washington Monument

George Washington Masonic Memorial

In 1747, when Washington was 15 years old, he accompanied his friend, George William Fairfax, on a surveying expedition to the Virginia - now West Virginia - frontier and the headwaters of Patterson Creek, a tributary of the South Branch of the Potomac River. I got to know well over a thousand feet of Patterson Creek intimately over the span of a quarter century. The creek was a great source of recreation, leisure, study and contemplation. It was a powerful force in shaping my future. I learned of Washington's trip there long after I'd left the place but I still think about what it would have been like sitting on the creek bank in 1960 and suddenly seeing a teenage boy in colonial dress come slogging around the bend about 50 yeards downriver. Somehow I think that sacred place still speaks about our imaginary conversation. Listen carefully next time you stand slone in the riffles of your favorite creek. You will hear your own stories there. 

Sources


Illustrations:
Stuart portrait, a copy known as the Lansdowne Portrait, hangs in the White House. The original is located in the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Postcards are from the author's archive.

Presidents Day 2023. . .And A Very Merry Unbirthday For Abe And George

Regardless of what you may hear on the street today's holiday commemorates Washington's birthday. As the official federal government page states,

This holiday is designated as "Washington’s Birthday" in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code, which is the law that specifies holidays for Federal employees. Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names, it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in the law.

At one time the nation had a Washington's Birthday holiday on February 22, the actual day of the man's birth, but that changed in 1971 when the "Monday holiday rule" took effect. The rule was a postlude to a torturous twent year saga of federal bickering, ineptitude, and state's rights issues over the national failure to honor our presidents, especially Abraham Lincoln, with their very own holiday. The fallout left us with what is in reality a Washington's Unbirthday holiday and a three-day weekend. Honest Abe didn't make the official cut.

That said, American capitalists, never keen to let a good shopping opportunity pass, liked the idea of a President's Day, especially one that could be stretched over a full week . They saw the advantage of the patriotic fervor generated by matching silhouettes of Lincoln - log cabins - and Washington - axes and cherries - positioned over merchandise and big red signs reading "SALE." The concept caught on. Today, about all Americans have left with the third Monday in February is the opportunity to buy stuff, mostly stuff they don't need. On the federal level, this not only leaves us with nothing for Old Abe but also nothing for the other presidents save George and his big unbirthday.

So what is one to do?

Perhaps it's best to forget the issues of a misnomer and the neglected presidents and return to Lincoln and Washington as our February presidents. And they have more in common as presidents who share the quality of American exceptionalism, a term we've been hearing more often these days as the republic drifts ever deeper into its golden years.

I elected some years ago to honor these gentlemen on their respective birthdays and celebrate this Monday federal holiday with an Old Fashioned and the pop and crack of a perfect fire. In time my conversations with the faces in the fire will help me organize a tribute post to George Washington that will appear on his birthday, February 22. We owe it to this statesman who postponed a well-earned retirement to become our first chief executive and shaper of what became known as the Office of the President of the United States.




Sources
Text:
federal holiday quote, opm.gov/policy-data-oversight

On Lincoln's Birthday - Remembering Looking Toward Peace: 'We Must Disenthrall Ourselves.'

 

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, was born on this day 213 years ago at Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. Today, his grand marble likeness gazes down on millions of visitors drawn to his memorial on the Mall in Washington.

As visitors climb the marble steps, pass marble columns, and enter the chamber of the Lincoln Memorial, they are awestruck by Daniel Chester French’s enormous marble statue of Abraham Lincoln. To what part of the Georgia marble figure is the eye drawn first? Possibly, the serious look on Lincoln’s face will remind the visitor of the critical time of Civil War through which the president guided our nation. Maybe the reeds wrapped together in the arms of Lincoln’s chair will prompt the visitor to remember the way that Lincoln wanted to keep us bound together as one nation.

If you want to settle into an evening with Lincoln and his age, your choice of titles will number in the thousands and in a variety of media. I am inclined to recommend Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years. It is available as a one-volume abridgement of the original six-volume version of the biography. Not always accurate, not always "organized" as a traditional biography, Sandburg tells the story of Lincoln in the same manner a wise elder would deliver oral histories to those who wonder who they are and what they may become. It's romantic, rich, warm, organic, meandering, sometimes stormy, sometimes calm. I think the approach works well because the Lincoln story is in so many respects the American story. Also keep in mind that although well-known as a poet Sandburg soon was revered in the U.S. as a poet/writer for the people once the first volumes appeared . With that in mind, I believe Old Abe would have been proud to select a writer of popular history and culture as his official biographer.

Abraham Lincoln Photo Portrait, early 1865 Alexander Gardner

As you can see from the photo below, Lincoln and I go back a bit. That picture was taken in the spring of 1952 - complete with what would become my signature pose with binoculars - during my first visit to Washington. It began a long association with Old Abe and his American experience that peaked during the last thirty years of my career. What an honor it was to know him well and work to preserve his story for future generations visiting our national parks. For more about Abe Lincoln's early years at Sinking Spring and Knob Creek farms visit the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park website.

Beyond the photographs worth a thousand words we sometimes find a thousand words worth far more than the images and snippets we'll see and hear today about Abraham Lincoln. In 1959, the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, Sandburg was asked to address a joint session of Congress on Old Abe's legacy. Here is his conclusion:

The people of many other countries take Lincoln now for their own. He belongs to them. He stands for decency, honest dealing, plain talk, and funny stories. "Look where he came from—don‘t he know all us strugglers and wasn‘t he a kind of tough struggler all his life right up to the finish?" Something like that you can hear in any nearby neighborhood and across the seas. Millions there are who take him as a personal treasure. He had something they would like to see spread everywhere over the world. Democracy? We can‘t say exactly what it is, but he had it. In his blood and bones he carried it. In the breath of his speeches and writings it is there. Popular government? Republican institutions? Government where the people have the say-so, one way or another telling their elected rulers what they want? He had the idea. It‘s there in the lights and shadows of his personality, a mystery that can be lived but never fully spoken in words.

Our good friend the poet and playwright Mark Van Doren, tells us, ―To me, Lincoln seems, in some ways, the most interesting man who ever lived . . . He was gentle but this gentleness was combined with a terrific toughness, an iron strength.‖ How did he say he would like to be remembered? His beloved friend, Representative Owen Lovejoy of Illinois, had died in May of 1864, and friends wrote to Lincoln and he replied that the pressure of duties kept him from joining them in efforts for a marble monument to Lovejoy. The last sentence of his letter saying, ―Let him have the marble monument along with the well assured and more enduring one in the hearts of those who love liberty, unselfishly, for all men.‖ So perhaps we may say that the well assured and most enduring memorial to Lincoln is invisibly there, today, tomorrow and for a long time yet to come in the hearts of lovers of liberty, men and women who understand that wherever there is freedom there have been those who fought and sacrificed for it.

Powerful words. And if your interested in hearing Sandburg's complete address it's available here. If you have never heard him speak, at least take a few minutes to experience the compelling voice and style of a master orator, one of our most beloved poets and perceptive participant-observers of the American experience.





Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Lincoln photograph, Gardner collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Abraham Lincoln statue, commons.wikimedia.org
Lincoln Memorial, personal photo 1952, author's archive


Text:
Title, a Lincoln quote from Carl Sandburg's poem, The Long Shadow of Lincoln: A Litany
First quotation, National Park Service, Lincoln Memorial webpage, www.nps.gov/linc