As the Shrine's resident curmudgeon, I'd like to point out that the holiday coming up next Monday is still, at least officially, Washington's Birthday, rather than the blander, imprecise "Presidents' Day," which makes him, a titanic, iconic figure in both history and the imagination, no better or worse than the rather checkered series of men who have governed our nation. As far as I'm concerned, it's right up there with National Chocolate Cake Day, Festivus, or that thing with the tanks and guys in goofy fur hats in Red Square in terms of invented festivals. (And at least Festivus has the airing of grievances). It is the historical equivalent of handing out gold stars to all the kiddies in the class. Lincoln, for his posthumous place in the American imagination, is the closest after Washington in being logically allocated a holiday, and after him nearly all the others are distant seconds and thirds (even my beloved John Adams, I have to admit. Though, sed contra: "Friendship and trust in the entourage is the most important thing. Like that HBO show... John Adams." Thus Tracy Jordan.)
Do we really need a holiday to remember nonentities like Warren Harding or William Henry Harrison, or klutzy warmongers like McKinley (whose administration's nitwit Platt Amendment soured relations with Cuba for decades)* or Woodrow Wilson, the sanctimonious racist schoolmarm who dismantled most of Catholic Europe at Versailles? Or, for that matter, James S. Polk? I'm quite glad we stretch from sea to shining sea, but let's face it, it's hard to explain how we got a good chunk of that real estate without at least a little national embarassment.
Certainly Washington and Lincoln's reputations were not spotless, but that they could inspire such a legend, and for so long, suggests something of permanence beyond the mere facts. Rushes to secular canonization produce dull civic gods--who remembers Garfield, the great martyr who loomed so high in 1885? That Washington is still remembered, if only for apple trees and wooden teeth, is at least a testament to persistence. (And that he was the only president to wear a court sword on public occasions, if I remember, suggests he had a sense of style and decorum denied to nearly the whole of the governing tradition he inaugurated. Jefferson met ambassadors while wearing carpet slippers, for crying out loud.) A holiday for all the presidents robs us of the specificity essential to memory; it is like offering incense up to a senate subcomittee on traffic-cones, manufactured and utterly devoid of a deeper, organic significance. And it just doesn't ring true in the snappy names department: culture needs specificity; great holidays are named for gods or heroes, not, as the French revolution would have it, random atmospheric phenomena, or, as we would have it, a class of very dull individuals in ties who only occasionally distinguish themselves, whether on the right or left. (And, frankly, I like my rulers dull. It's safer that way. I'm quite sure Vlad the Impaler and Charles the Mad were the life of the party, for better or worse.) It is very different from a holiday for all the saints, known and unknown--which is almost like a monument to the unknown soldier, mysterious and poignant. It is a textbook example of how today's culture continues to bleach all the interest, romance and rootedness out of life--whether on account of timidity or a false sense of fairness, I do not know.
*Essentially, it reads, "Yes, of course, we just gave independence to your nation, but we'll be able to send troops in to muck around with your personal national sovereignty whenever we need to borrow a cup of sugar." I don't doubt our republic's (hamfisted if more-or-less) good intentions in these cases, but really, doesn't anyone think this stuff through?
Do we really need a holiday to remember nonentities like Warren Harding or William Henry Harrison, or klutzy warmongers like McKinley (whose administration's nitwit Platt Amendment soured relations with Cuba for decades)* or Woodrow Wilson, the sanctimonious racist schoolmarm who dismantled most of Catholic Europe at Versailles? Or, for that matter, James S. Polk? I'm quite glad we stretch from sea to shining sea, but let's face it, it's hard to explain how we got a good chunk of that real estate without at least a little national embarassment.
Certainly Washington and Lincoln's reputations were not spotless, but that they could inspire such a legend, and for so long, suggests something of permanence beyond the mere facts. Rushes to secular canonization produce dull civic gods--who remembers Garfield, the great martyr who loomed so high in 1885? That Washington is still remembered, if only for apple trees and wooden teeth, is at least a testament to persistence. (And that he was the only president to wear a court sword on public occasions, if I remember, suggests he had a sense of style and decorum denied to nearly the whole of the governing tradition he inaugurated. Jefferson met ambassadors while wearing carpet slippers, for crying out loud.) A holiday for all the presidents robs us of the specificity essential to memory; it is like offering incense up to a senate subcomittee on traffic-cones, manufactured and utterly devoid of a deeper, organic significance. And it just doesn't ring true in the snappy names department: culture needs specificity; great holidays are named for gods or heroes, not, as the French revolution would have it, random atmospheric phenomena, or, as we would have it, a class of very dull individuals in ties who only occasionally distinguish themselves, whether on the right or left. (And, frankly, I like my rulers dull. It's safer that way. I'm quite sure Vlad the Impaler and Charles the Mad were the life of the party, for better or worse.) It is very different from a holiday for all the saints, known and unknown--which is almost like a monument to the unknown soldier, mysterious and poignant. It is a textbook example of how today's culture continues to bleach all the interest, romance and rootedness out of life--whether on account of timidity or a false sense of fairness, I do not know.
*Essentially, it reads, "Yes, of course, we just gave independence to your nation, but we'll be able to send troops in to muck around with your personal national sovereignty whenever we need to borrow a cup of sugar." I don't doubt our republic's (hamfisted if more-or-less) good intentions in these cases, but really, doesn't anyone think this stuff through?
Agreed. Holidays for "Random atmospheric phenomonena," I'll have to remember that one!
ReplyDeleteA little Washington birthday trivia: He was born before England adopted the reformed Gregorian calendar on February 11, 1732 (Old Style). After England finally adopted the reformed calendar around 1752, Washington's birthday was adjusted to February 22 (New Style). England resisted the reformed calendar for a couple of centuries as a papist innovation.
BTW, the 11th US president was James K. Polk. (K for Knox).
david s
Well, now that I think about it, probably it's more correct to say the Revolutionary Calendar referred to months named after said phenomena, not holidays. But I think they had different agricultural products assigned to each day of the calendar to replace the saints... who wants to venerate asparagus?
ReplyDeleteJames K. Polk was probably the second-best POTUS. He achieved what he set out to do then he went home and died.
ReplyDeleteAs a Texan, I don't know whether to laud Mr. Polk for starting the war that definitively settled our entry into the USA, or be mad at him for denying we Texans independent existence.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your take on Mr. Wilson.
The president to be mad at for denying Texans independent existence would be Sam Houston, who made a point of driving the Republic into so much debt that annexation was the only way out. Samuel Morse offered Texas the patent on the telegraph, which would have made us solvent, but President Houston refused.
ReplyDeleteEr, I always thought the presidents of "Presidents Day" were Washington and Lincoln. I was always under the impression that it was sort of an omnibus holiday because we couldn't be bothered to celebrate both their birthdays...
ReplyDeleteAnd, frankly, I like my rulers dull. It's safer that way. I'm quite sure Vlad the Impaler and Charles the Mad were the life of the party, for better or worse.
ReplyDeleteMove to Canada! They need good Catholics, too!
Uuhhhh... despite my weird fixation with Canada during high school, it's cold enough here in Wisconsin. And the US has had her share of dull, forgettable and eminently prudent leaders (this is a compliment). Ike and some of the late 19th century presidents come to mind. (At least the ones who weren't US Grant.)
ReplyDeleteChristina--Officially it's still Washington's birthday. There have been attempts to change the federal holiday name. In some instances, depending on who was pushing the name change, it appears the rename would have been to honor all the presidents, the presidency in the abstract (an even odder idea, as if it were the Holy Crown of St Stephen), or Washington and Lincoln, as you said. Some local state versions of the observance also honor presidents from that state. In any case, it's lost nearly all of its specific Washingtonian and Lincolnian trappings, and seems to vaguely refer to all presidents, if anyone thinks about it at all.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, the Venetians were the only people who could come up with good secular state holidays, and it helped they had St. Mark to fall back on when things got slow. And nice official hats.
Agreed that all others, even (chocking as I type this since I to am a big fan of JA) lag behind these 2. But if any VP deserves a holiday it is our 1st, John Adams. (I'll take whatever I can.)
ReplyDeleteI do admit that Adams is probably my favorite president/VP, if not perhaps the greatest. Inquisitive, intelligent, a bit neurotic, dignified, hardworking, down-to-earth... it's hard not to love the guy.
ReplyDeleteThe one office that JA did not flatter was that of the vice presidency; his bungling of it made it the neutered position it has until recently been. And I am a JA fan. He would, with vanity pained, probably admit as much.
ReplyDeleteAdams? You're joking.
ReplyDeleteThe same who brought us the unconstitutional "Alien & Sedition Acts"
The same whose party (Federalist--Whigs--Republic) brought us Lincoln and his twisted view on the role of the federal government, and the final destruction of the Constitution and true federalism? (Read Catholic author Thomas Woods' "Who Killed the Constitution")
The same anti-Catholic who penned his wife:
"This afternoon, led by Curiosity and good Company I strolled away to Mother Church, or rather Grandmother Church, I mean the Romish Chapel. Heard a good, short, moral Essay upon the Duty of Parents to their Children, founded in justice and Charity, to take care of their Interests temporal and spiritual.
This afternoon's entertainment was to me most awful and affecting. The poor wretches fingering their beads, chanting Latin, not a word of which they understood, their Pater Nosters and Ave Marias. Their holy water-- their crossing themselves perpetually-- their bowing to the name of Jesus wherever they hear it-- their bowings, and kneelings, and genuflections before the altar. The dress of the priest was rich with lace-- his pulpit was velvet and gold. The altar piece was very rich-- little images and crucifixes about-- wax candles lighted up. But how shall I describe the picture of our Saviour in a frame of marble over the altar, at full length, upon the cross in the agonies, and the blood dropping and streaming from his wounds.
The music consisting of an organ, and a Choir of singers, went all the afternoon, excepting sermon Time, and the Assembly chanted-- most sweetly and exquisitely.
Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear, and imagination. Everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and the ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell."
Something for all Catholics to think about...
Eh, it's not like Jefferson, the world's first limousine liberal and lover of the French revolution, was much better. (His architectural skills are also extremely overrated. Monticello is a mess, functionally speaking. Though I do like the cannonball clock.) I'd take Adams over him in a jiffy.
ReplyDeleteAs to his anti-Catholicism, considering what he might have said, given his new England upbringing, that's rather mild. At least he didn't publish his own expurgated Bible!
(Also, with the possible exception of Hamilton, I'd say most Federalists back then would find our modern centralizing government unrecognizable. That one can lay at the foot of Woodrow Wilson and the nonsense of the "living constitution.")
John Adams was a good deal nicer in what he said than many of our great Catholic converts were before they converted.
ReplyDeleteAlso, that's the "Eek! I didn't hate it! What to do!" Louisa May Alcott anti-Catholicism, not the "Burn 'em all!" type. We had plenty of the second kind in the US at that time, in his very neck of the woods. So yes, I'm saddened, but no, I'm not driven to think poorly of him. He was doing better than most. Poor guy.
"who wants to venerate asparagus?"
ReplyDeleteMe! That would be a GREAT feast-day!