Wes Riddle’s Horse Sense #384

Washington’s Birthday Not for Every President
by Wes Riddle

My federal holiday calendar says “Washington’s Birthday (Observed)” on the square marked 16 February (2009). That’s what it is. It is for nobody else, even if I might like to celebrate Ronald Reagan’s too, who was after all born on 6 February.

No holiday has quite as much confusion surrounding it. Indeed, until 1971 both 12 February (in many parts of the country) and 22 February (everywhere) were observed as public holidays to honor the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, respectively. Yep kids in many parts of the country used to get two additional days off in February, even though it was the shortest month of the year already. Then President Nixon who clearly hated kids proclaimed a single federal public holiday, which ostensibly lumped the two together. According to a contemporary newspaper spoof, his proclamation read that this day should be “set aside to honor all presidents, even myself.” Efforts to standardize, if not rationalize the growing list of national holidays date back to the 1950s and almost culminated with the Uniform Holidays Bill of 1968, which proposed creating Presidents’ Day by name. Although that part of the bill failed, it gave rise to popular myth that we should honor all our past presidents. For commercial reasons, some advertisers and merchants still like the idea. In point of fact, Nixon’s proclamation identified a single day only as “Washington’s Birthday.” Still another attempt to throw Lincoln into the holiday mix failed as late as 2001. Nevertheless, confusion reigns each and every third Monday in February.

Perhaps St. Valentine would “love” every last one of the presidents, but I doubt it. Consider the “legacy” question/controversy amongst politicos and historians, which will no doubt go on for many years, concerning the last president’s brilliant accomplishments. The American Conservative magazine in November listed a series of “Missions Accomplished”: Start a war (or two); Shred the Constitution; Crash the economy; Expand entitlements; Ruin America’s reputation abroad; Create a new Democratic political majority; Bribe churches; Recruit for Al-Qaeda; Discredit conservatism; Nationalize the banks; Cut taxes now (pay later); Misunderstand a very serious hurricane; Export jobs and import legal and illegal workers; Federalize education; and Spy on citizens. The list may be over-harsh, but virtually everyone will agree that some presidents have been better than others, and some presidents have been positively awful! So why in the world would we honor all of them?

The fact is that we don’t honor the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or the Speaker of the House or the Majority Leader in the Senate. We don’t celebrate the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the Supreme Allied Commander in either of the World Wars with federal public holidays. The idea of a “Presidents’ Day” is dumb. Anyway, if I’m going to celebrate all of the presidents or even the two most commonly mentioned then you’d better add back Jefferson Davis, who after all was President of at least half the country during the War Between the States. I for one am glad my federal holiday calendar says “Washington’s Birthday (Observed)” and not “Washington’s and Lincoln’s Birthdays (Observed with Nausea).”

Throughout the 19th and most of the 20th centuries, George Washington remained the towering figure in U.S. history. He commanded the Continental Army and led the Colonies to victory in the Revolutionary War against Great Britain. He served as first President of the United States of America and set many of our most important precedents for proper governance in a democratic republic. Without him the Constitution may not have been ratified and even if it had, the various factions would never have followed a single leader besides him as president at the nation’s start. George Washington gave us practical and historical examples of bipartisanship, of consensus and loyal opposition, even the likelihood of subsequent peaceful transition of power. He was a great man and of sterling character, a man of deep abiding faith also, who believed that the Hand of Providence played a part in America’s birth and auspicious beginnings. For many years ‘The Father of Our Country’s’ birthday was celebrated with almost as much patriotic fervor as the Fourth of July. The observance was made official in 1885 when President Chester Arthur (President Who?) signed a bill formally establishing February 22nd as a federal holiday. The only thing officially changed since then is observance on the third Monday in February. It is still Washington’s Birthday, not Lincoln’s or anybody else whom we honor.