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Trentonian Editorial – Franklin’s Project: A fabulous America
Jul 03, 2010
You could debate endlessly who was the most important Founding Father. Washington? Jefferson? Adams? Madison?
Certainly a convincing case could be made for each. But what about the one who never became president — Ben Franklin?
He played a crucial role in every stage in the birth of the United States of America. The Declaration of Independence. The Revolutionary War. The Constitution.
But for his keen sense of knowing when principle needed to be emphasized and when compromise needed to be sought — a political skill woefully lacking presently — America might never have progressed successfully through any of its early challenges.
Even so, you’d no doubt get dissents from any number of scholars and academics if you nominated Franklin as the No. 1 Founding Father. But surely nobody could question that he was the most fascinating of an amazing group that Fate brought together in one place at one point in history.
He was, foremost among his myriad activities, a writer, editor and publisher who sought to connect with and involve the people in the issues large and small of their community.
Just to list the different callings in which he succeeded would take up all the space allotted here. To journalist, add statesman, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, educator, philanthropist, inventor, entrepreneur, reputed gallivanter extraordinaire — we’ll cut it short there.
He was quintessentially American in the ordinariness of his ancestry. Had he run for office, he could have stressed, without exaggeration, his modest roots. His father was a soap and candlemaker, his grandfather a blacksmith. He worked his way to top on the strength of his talent alone, and that talent was, of course, an incredible strength.
He was a font of witticism on matters both mundane and momentous. “God helps those that help themselves.” “Little strokes fell great oaks.” “A penny saved is a penny earned.” And less-quoted aphorisms such as: “After three days men grow weary of a wench, a guest and weather rainy.”
When John Hancock remarked upon signing the Declaration of Independence that the signers had better hang together, the great wit Franklin famously responded or else “assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Other words he said that were never forgotten and folks have found useful to quote ever since: “There never was a good war, or a bad peace.” And: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Every school child knows, of course, that Franklin flew the kite in a lightning storm to satisfy a scientific hunch.
Lesser known — and perhaps a better teaching point — would be the story of how he once condemned racial prejudice in the face of an angry mob. This involved a group of settlers (“The Paxton Boys”) out in the Pennsylvania boondocks.
Angered that the government was failing to protect them from Indian raids, the group massacred peaceful Indians and then marched on Philadelphia. Franklin organized a militia to stop them — and authored an excoriating denunciation of racial prejudice. (“If an Indian injures me, does it follow that I may revenge that injury on all Indians.”)
He seems also to have had the capacity too often lacking these days in public figures to examine his own faults, own up to them and make amends. He freed the two slaves in his service and became a leading advocate of abolition while others (Jefferson and Washington, to name two) equivocated and temporized on their own doubts about the “peculiar institution” of slavery.
With a Founding Father like Franklin — whether or not you’d rank him No. 1 Founder — how could America have turned out to be other than a great nation?
Happy July 4th!
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How a Founder got the date wrong
Jul 03, 2010
By DANIEL DEAGLER
John Adams predicted that July 2nd would be the most memorable date in American history — a date that “will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival … to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.”
He got everything right but the date. The 4th day of July 1776 is indeed the definitive date in American history. Nothing else comes close. When we hear 1776, we are invariably reminded of the Founders in Philadelphia and the noble purpose and principles of our nation’s beginning. We tend to call our national birthday not Independence Day, but the Fourth of July, and that name floods our minds with lifetime memories of flags, marching bands, red, white and blue bunting draped on picket fences, hot dogs, potato salad, friends, family and fireworks.
So, why would Adams think it would be the 2nd day of July that would burn itself indelibly into our national soul? Why do we celebrate the 4th and not the 2nd? First, we must go back one month. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia presented to Congress the following resolution (seconded by John Adams): “Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown … .”
Since the delegates of several colonies, including Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey, were not authorized to vote for outright independence, debate was postponed for three weeks to enable advocates to make their best case for independence to the colonial legislatures. On June 11, Congress appointed a Committee of Five (Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert L. Livingston) to draft an official declaration stating the reasons for severing political ties with Great Britain, in anticipation of a successful adoption of the Lee Resolution. The famous painting by John Trumbell called the Declaration of Independence depicts the Committee of Five presenting the draft to the seated John Hancock on June 28, 1776. The declaration was set-aside for a few days while the Lee Resolution was debated. Final adoption came on July 2, with the approval of 12 of the 13 colonies. New York still lacked instructions, so they abstained on the vote.
When the vote on the Lee Resolution carried and John Hancock banged the gavel and declared, “So moved,” Congress at that moment formally cut America’s ties with Britain. And so it can be reasonably argued that on that day — July 2nd — our nation came into existence. This was Adam’s logical thinking.
The Committee of Five’s formal declaration, officially titled “The unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America,” was debated and revised for three days and finished on the morning of July 4. On Thursday, July 4, 1776 at eleven o’clock, debate on the declaration was closed and the vote was taken: Twelve for, one abstention. (New York again.) Congress ordered the document authenticated and sent it out to John Dunlap’s to be printed. Only John Hancock signed the original declaration that day. According to historian David McCullough, John Adams, who was so effusive about the events of July 2nd, recorded not a word about the significance of July 4th. Jefferson spent the afternoon of the 4th shopping in Philadelphia. As for the Liberty Bell, it did indeed ring to “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,” summoning the residents of Philadelphia for the first public reading of the Declaration. But that didn’t occur until July 8th.
The most important principle, put into words by Jefferson writing: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Our nation, 234 years old this 4th (or 2nd) was founded on that specific idea.
And it is that which makes the United States of America the exceptional nation.
—Daniel Deagler lives in Plumstead Township, Pa.
From Klan to Senate: a saga
Jul 03, 2010
By COKIE and STEVEN V. ROBERTS
During his years as the Senate’s Democratic leader, Robert C. Byrd would occasionally give presents to reporters who covered him. One was his four-volume history of the Senate, liberally sprinkled with erudite references to Cicero and Caesar. Another was his record album, “Mountain Fiddler,” featuring such country favorites as “Cripple Creek” and “Turkey in the Straw.”
When Sen. Byrd died recently at 92, obituaries mentioned the high points of his career (longest-serving member of Congress) and the low points (youthful membership in the Ku Klux Klan). What we remember most is symbolized by his two gifts.
He venerated the Hill of his adult years, but never forgot the hills of his West Virginia boyhood.
Byrd had many flaws common to politicians, including an endless fascination with the sound of his own voice. He proudly funneled billions of dollars in taxpayer money to his home state, contributing to skyrocketing budget deficits.
But he was not some cartoon character, some made-up myth about the promise of American life. He was the real deal, a self-made man in the truest sense, who embodied two of the country’s most profound values: self-reliance and redemption.
Byrd owned little as a boy, not even his name. He was born Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr. in 1917, but his mother died the next year and his father sent him to live with an aunt and uncle. Renamed Robert Carlyle Byrd, he grew up learning to slaughter hogs, play the fiddle, and memorize Bible verses.
He graduated first in his high-school class, but college was out of the question. So he married at 19, pumped gas, taught himself how to butcher, worked as a welder, and then opened a grocery store in the tiny town of Sophia (population 1,301 in 2000).
There was always a hunger in the man to be respected, and when a chief of the local Klan told him that he had “talents of leadership,” he gulped down the praise. “Suddenly, lights flashed in my mind,” he later wrote. “Someone important had recognized my abilities.”
Byrd never completely erased the stain of his Klan ties, but he was willing to say words that are seldom heard in Washington these days: “I know now I was wrong.” He later added, “I apologized a thousand times, and I don’t mind apologizing over and over again. Intolerance had no place in America.”
As his political career ascended, the drive to reinvent himself never abated. He studied law at night and earned his degree at 46.
Byrd knew that the education once denied him would elevate others. He sponsored scholarship programs for high-school graduates, and one of his proudest achievements was a bill mandating schools to teach about the Constitution.
He was a poor performer on radio and TV (too wordy, too fidgety ), but he understood their power to enlighten the electorate. He allowed National Public Radio to broadcast the Panama Canal debate live in 1979, and seven years later, he led the campaign to televise all Senate sessions.
He respected the Senate and defended its powers. He was particularly outraged when his fellow senators endorsed President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. That decision, he wrote later, “amounted to a complete evisceration of the Constitutional prerogative to declare war.”
Already frail and failing, he pleaded last year: “Let us stop the name-calling and have a civilized debate on health care.” His appeal failed. But the senator from Sophia remained a civilized and civic-spirited man. Not a bad epitaph.
—Syndicated columnists Cokie and Steve Roberts can be contacted by e-mail at stevecokie@gmail.com.
Trentonian editorial: The ‘right’ war and ‘wrong’ one
Jul 02, 2010
Whatever direction the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is headed — and the signposts aren’t encouraging — President Obama now holds full ownership title to that increasingly dubious-looking project.
This is “Obama’s war” not only because he authorized a troop surge for it, but more so because he repeatedly declared during his presidential campaign that Afghanistan was the “right” war while Iraq was the “wrong” one, the “bad” one — George Bush’s.
Like many of Obama’s glib assertions, this pronouncement was so much hooey.
Tenacious in its backward ways, hardscrabble Afghanistan was never much of a key regional player in the way that Saddam-ruled Iraq was.
Afghanistan was a menace beyond its own borders only to the extent it hosted al-Qaida terrorist training camps. It was — especially once the Taliban-run government was uprooted post-9/11 — a minor-league menace compared with the major-league menace of Saddam’s Iraq.
In contrast to Afghanistan, Iraq possessed a middle class including educated technocrats able to draw up a weapons-of-mass-destruction program for the regime.
The Iraq government that was toppled by George Bush’s “wrong war” possessed a substantial military and didn’t hesitate to provoke bloody wars with neighbors. Nor did it balk at using chemical weapons to exterminate civilians in mass numbers, as it did the Iraqi Kurds.
The regime that was put out of business by Bush’s “wrong war” openly financed Palestinian terrorists, handing over lottery-jackpot-like checks in public ceremonies to the families of “martyrs” who had blown up themselves and innocent others.
The regime that was terminated by Bush’s “bad war” possessed a ruthlessly efficient police state apparatus that eradicated not only thousands of suspected foes but their families as well, including children, as the exhumed mass graves later revealed. (Hardly surprising given the origins of Saddam’s Baathist political party, an organization directly modeled on Nazism.)
The regime in Iraq that supposedly distracted Bush from concentrating on the “right” war in Afghanistan offered refuge to Osama bin Laden and actually did provide refuge to other leading al-Qaida figures. And that regime’s intelligence operatives maintained intermittent contact with al-Qaida leaders (see bipartisan 9/11 Commission report).
The regime that was dismantled by Bush’s “bad war” — over the outraged opposition of “peace community” activists — sought out yellow cake uranium in Africa (see England’s Lord Butler Commission report). And around the time of 9/11, the regime was within five years of attaining nuclear weapons capability, according to the intelligence assessments of the left-leaning government that was then in power in Germany.
All in all, we’d say, looking back, it was no shining moment of glory that “peace” protesters were able to gaze upon Saddam’s Iraq with such placid, bovine equanimity while fulminating against Bush as a reincarnation of Hitler.
In any event, having helped rally the “peace” community against Bush’s “wrong” war while labeling Afghanistan the “right” one (lest the electorate reject him as a too-far-left pacifist), Obama now finds himself maneuvered into a corner by his own crafty, clever politics.
Certainly, however, we wish him godspeed in getting out of that corner, since we’re in it with him.
Exit exegesis
Regarding Afghanistan exit plans, “Everyone knows there’s a firm date,” avers Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. One year from now, the troops’ll be outta there, period, he adds.
You can “bank on it,” chimes in VP Joe Biden.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates insists, however, that a definite withdrawal date “absolutely has not been decided.”
And Gen. David Petraeus says: “There’ll be an assessment at the end of the year, after which undoubtedly we’ll make certain tweaks, perhaps some significant changes.”
Hopefully, the Taliban nasties are as confused as we are. But we doubt it.
Passionate troublemakers
Jul 02, 2010
By JOHN M. CRISP
As BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward began his opening statement to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce earlier last month, a heckler in the audience disrupted the proceedings. She poured a substance that looked like oil over her hands and face and shouted that Hayward is a criminal who should be jailed.
Capitol police quickly subdued the heckler and hustled her out of the hearing, which got back to business. Representatives expressed their indignation to Hayward, who seemed smug and unimpressed with the proceedings, almost as though he had a yacht race to catch.
But who was that heckler?
Her name is Diane Wilson. Nearly everything I know about her comes from her 2005 memoir, “An Unreasonable Woman,” a masterpiece of environmental literature. In 1989, Wilson was scratching out a living in the tiny coastal town of Seadrift, Texas. Without formal education beyond high school, she worked in a fish house and ran her own shrimp boat while taking care of five children and her husband, a Vietnam War vet.
Wilson is a natural storyteller and a fine writer. Her eloquent depiction of a backwater fishing community is an instructive portrait of the way of life threatened by the BP oil spill.
But even in 1989, the coastal fishing life was jeopardized by wastewater discharges from the chemical plants lining the bays: Alcoa, Union Carbide, DuPont, BP Chemicals and Formosa Plastics, among others. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency reported that Wilson’s coastal county, Calhoun, was the most polluted in the nation.
Her initial protest target was Formosa Plastics. Wilson soon learned that environmental activism requires fighting not only big corporations but also local politicians and fellow citizens, many of whom stand to benefit from industrial expansion despite the inevitable pollution that comes with it.
Sometimes Wilson’s work involved petitions and lawsuits, sometimes demonstrations and hunger strikes. Sometimes she broke the law. On occasion she spent as much as four months in jail. She won some battles and lost many others. But in the face of formidable and threatening opposition from all quarters, Wilson developed an unswerving commitment to environmental reform.
People like Wilson make us nervous; we find their public passion embarrassing or ridiculous. Somehow we retain our faith in the ordinary methodical processes of government and bureaucracy and in the reassurances of big corporations.
Yet, as I write, the Gulf of Mexico continues to die. The research of Ocean Alliance, which took tissue samples from nearly a thousand sperm whales in some of the most remote oceans, found dangerously high levels of toxic metals such as cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium.
Diane Wilson is fond of referring to Henry David Thoreau, the 19th century American transcendentalist who famously spent a night in jail for refusing to pay a tax in objection to the Mexican War. In later life, he said that his only regret was being too well behaved.
People like Wilson and Thoreau are burdened by imaginations that permit them to believe that the world can be changed — and burdened by the courage to misbehave to make it happen.
—Syndicated columnist John M. Crisp teaches in the English. at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. E-mail him at jcrisp@delmar.edu.
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