ANOTHER GAZE INTO THE NATIONAL LOOKING GLASS

By Edwin Cooney

I wasn’t the least bit surprised a week ago last Friday, July 19^th, 2013 when President Obama issued his thoughtfully eloquent statement in the wake of the recent acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin.  I know Mr. Zimmerman is therefore not guilty of murder, and will forever remain so under the Constitution, but I, like many others, believe that George Zimmerman was as deliberate in his intent and in his ultimate actions as O.J. Simpson was (although he was acquitted in the killing of his ex-wife back in 1994).

The truth is that law, rather than justice, prevailed in both cases.  In both instances, the prosecution failed to prove its case.  For his ordeal, O.J. Simpson afforded himself a legal “dream team” consisting of Johnnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, Robert Kardashian, and F. Lee Bailey.  In Mr. Zimmerman’s case, the prosecution was forced to make its case absent any witnesses hence its justifiably difficult task died aborning.

President Obama’s task as our national leader was to provide some perspective for you and me, regardless of how we feel about Mr. Zimmerman, so that we might more successfully examine our own understanding of how we’re all perceived in today’s increasingly cynical society.  So, you might well ask, how did American society become so cynical?

As I see it, this era of national cynicism began “once upon a time” almost fifty years ago.  As I was told, on the morning of Saturday, November 23^rd, 1963, Americans awakened stripped of their innocence.  John Fitzgerald Kennedy had been abruptly taken from our midst by an act we couldn’t imagine any decent and reasonable person would possibly want to commit.  Young and vital, well educated and erudite, a force for positive energy in our lives despite some personal shortcomings, Kennedy was our president and cultural leader. Hence, for nearly fifty years

now, it has become fashionable to be skeptical about everything from race, religion, politics, war, sexual orientation, guns, sports, marriage, parenting, and beyond.  It’s only inevitable, therefore, that the children of the JFK assassination era took on their parent’s cynicism!

Now, for the second time in that fifty year period (the presidency of Ronald Reagan marks the first time), we have a president who possesses a powerfully winning way about him.  In addition to being our president, he is also, by dint of his race and inclinations, a civil rights leader.

Unlike some of the most successful or prominent black preachers and politicians who have become nationally prominent since the immediate post World War II era, Barack Hussein Obama (he apparently decided during his teens not to use the nickname Barry he was given as a boy) has sought to calm the waters of uncertainty and discontent that have become such an integral part of race relations.  Hence his stunningly effective March 16^th, 2008 speech in the wake of the controversy over his personal preacher, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.  On that occasion, Senator Obama spoke frankly but in a non-accusatory way of the history and the consequences of the historic relationship between blacks and whites in America.

A week ago Friday, the president demonstrated once again his mastery of his intellect and his emotions as he acknowledged the birthright dilemma faced especially by most black males in America.  At the same time, he forthrightly acknowledged how their behavior towards both whites and people of color too often given credence to the fears John and Suzie Q Citizen have concerning the possible intentions and behavior of black males.  What he had to say neither accused nor excused, nor did it subscribe to any political solution.

What the president’s 18 minute analysis did do is to salve the raw nerves of a nation buffeted once again by the powerful poison of race differential first introduced to the North American continent back in 1619.

For it was in that “Year of Our Lord” that English settlers (one can’t quite call them founding fathers) decided that one set (or race) of God’s children was sufficiently inferior so that one could reasonably strip them from their families in far off Africa and bring them to Virginia to be treated and cared for like pack animals.  A little more than two centuries later, the United States Supreme Court found blacks equal to property and t deserving only of the care a man’s horse or gun should have.

As the President observed two Fridays ago, we’ve come a long long way since another incident that occurred fifty years ago next month on August 28^th, 1963.

On that occasion, another black leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., asserted that every man ought to be judged by the content of his character rather than by the color of his skin.  Without minimizing the ongoing existence of racism, President Obama acknowledged the existence of a national healing presence.  Every generation, he asserted, handles racial sensitivities a little better than the generation before.

Thus, if your assessment of the Zimmerman verdict was that genuine justice had been done, the president didn’t argue with you.  On the other hand, if you felt anger and resentment in the wake of Zimmerman’s acquittal, the President didn’t offer traditional “liberal pie in the sky medicine,” but one could easily get the impression that there exists a leader at the national helm who not only understands and sympathizes with your pain, but who also has a personal stake in a better tomorrow. Indeed he does: their names are Malia Ann and Sasha (Natasha) Obama.

Meanwhile, President Obama keeps an ever watchful gaze into the national looking glass as he should.  It’s part of his job and a guarantor of our national security.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

“...AND SO YOU SAID!”

By Edwin Cooney

Last week I invited readers to think out of the box and consider the outrageous proposition that punishment doesn’t work and we ought to quit it.  Of the responses I received, a little more than half agreed with me, but there were some strong and definite negative responses.  I’ll share some of both with you.  First comes a reaction from the source of last week’s harangue.

“Well, well, well! I wouldn't have thought that that article from my beloved hometown paper would have inspired a column, but it did and what a terrific column it is! This, Ed, might be one of your best; and I say that, of course, because I agree with just about every word in it.”

A proud St. Louis conservative reacted to my challenge to think out of the box like this:

“I have strong principles and beliefs and do not think outside the box.”  In a later communication, he asserted that thinking outside of the box is just a “fuzzy cliché.”  I responded to him by pointing out how men such as Galileo, Columbus, Washington, Madison, Lincoln, Einstein and Ronald Reagan thought “out of the box,” just to name a few such thinkers.

A gentleman from Maryland isn’t so sure my head is screwed on straight.

“...without punishment people would do whatever they please without any fear of being held responsible for their actions. George Zimmerman should have received some punishment so that someone doesn't try to harm him.”

This Marylander is quite right to see the protective dynamic in punishment.  Incarceration not only protects society from the prisoner, it also protects the prisoner from the responsibilities of living in society.  Are people in prison really being held responsible?  Wow! What responsibilities does prison life require them to face, I wonder!  For whom are prisoners responsible?

A saucy St. Louis lady challenges:  “How do we know punishment doesn’t work?

That’s a fair enough question and a gentleman from cyberspace offers a partial answer:

“I recommend the book "Beyond Civilization" by Daniel Quinn.  In it, he points out that our current system of "Criminal Justice" isn't working.  He makes the point that if it were working, we would be closing prisons, not building more of them.”

That response makes sense to me, although many conservatives use the same logic when it comes to whether social programs work.  They insist that if social programs worked, poverty and crime would be decreasing rather than increasing.  Of course, as populations grow (as America’s has over the past half century), both the good and bad in society occur in proportion and sometimes in intensity.

An Alameda, California friend of mine makes the following observation with which I heartily agree:

“...we punish because we lack imagination. We simply can't imagine alternatives.  Just like generals send boys and girls to fight their wars because they lack imagination."

I’d alter his example of generals to statesmen, but I think he’s exactly right.  Instant communication is part of the reason John and Suzie Q citizen are aware of crime, its causes and its results to a greater degree than ever before.  Hence we’re sure that crime, deserving punishment, is greater than it ever has been.  Increasingly advanced technology will have an effect on the commission, the punishment and the prevention of crime in a way we can’t possibly imagine today.  A personal monitoring device fastened to the person of a convicted criminal may make prisons obsolete within our lifetime.

Moving to the spiritual, a San Bernardino man scolds me soundly!  He asserts at some length that God punishes and that because God punishes, punishment is just.  He’s a personal friend of mine and he’s worried for my soul, especially when I appear to defy scripture and minimize the word of God.  He asserts further that I should be focusing on the nature of criminality rather than on the nature or the necessity for punishment.  He believes that fear of punishment is the only reason why crime is as low as it is.  All I can say is that one of the attributes the good and the bad have in common is the capacity to dare when the cause is strong enough.  Remember, men on both sides during the Civil War were brave even though one side’s soldiers fought to protect slavery.

A San Francisco friend of mine had one simple inquiry after reading my suggestion that punishment is something we ought to quit doing.  His question was: “How do we do that? What do you suggest?”

My response was that I’m not suggesting that we change policy.  I’m suggesting that society will be healthier when we have an alteration of mind-set.  My suggestion is one that is evolutional, not revolutionary.  Fear not, we’ll continue to kill and be killed, capture and punish those who offend us and believe we’re administering justice.

Finally, I offer you the reactions of two ladies.

The first is a delightfully bright lady from Buffalo, home of “The Buffalo News,” the paper from which the story of Sister Rapp came.  Here’s what she writes:

“Perhaps karma could be thought of as cosmic justice.  In these almost seven years of parenting that I have been entwined I have often felt that our methods of correction, discipline, punishment or however you want to term it is almost completely ineffective.  I have come to believe that neuroevolution and developmental changes that my children are going through will do more to change their approach to any given situation.  It can be quite the mind warp, on the one hand one can't ignore when the seven year old pops his sister in the face but getting all bent out of shape about doesn't seem to have much of an affect.  Quite the quandary...”

How about that!  Karma and neurodevelopment!  I love those words, but somehow I’m not sure any of my childhood preachers or teachers would understand!

Before getting to the final lady’s comment, I can’t resist the following observation.  The most frustrating part of sharing my idea with you isn’t the disagreements or even the spiritual criticism.  The hardest thing for me to understand is why so many respondents have trouble discerning between punishment and justice.  Hence a story an empathetic friend related to me just the other day.  I fear it could be apocryphal, but I hope not because it so powerfully makes my point.

One day an attorney, while making his closing argument before the United States Supreme Court, asserted: “All we’re asking for, your Honors, in this case is pure and simple justice!"  Before he could move far enough away from the bar to sit down, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes leaned over and whispered, “Sir, remember that you’re in a court of law, not a court of justice.”

Finally, after reading of my unhappiness with punishment as a way of dealing with human misdeeds, a new resident of Hawaii wrote:

“Woe is you, Sir Edwin!”

I wonder if she’s right!  Please, let me back in the box. It’s hot down here!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

PUNISHMENT -- WE OUGHT TO QUIT IT!

By Edwin Cooney

Yah, I know I’m in trouble already even before you read any further!  However, that’s okay, because one of my jobs, as I see it, is to invite you to join me in occasionally thinking outside of the box.  However, before I make my case, here’s the origin of this week’s social commentary.

I got a message from a friend and reader this week. He related a story from the Buffalo Evening News about a 68-year-old nun, Sister Mary Anne Rapp of the Sisters of St. Francis of Penance and Christian Charity in Lewiston, New York.  Sister Mary Anne is going to jail for 90 days for stealing $130,000 over a period of five years from the parishioners of two churches in Orleans County, New York.  No one, not even me, argues with the restitution aspect of the court’s judgment, but I agree fully with my friend who writes that jailing this nun is not justice.  She will get through the 90 day sentence in the Orleans County jail and she’ll gladly do her 100 hours of community service and pay her $128,000 of restitution.  However I argue that her punishment will have nothing to do with her successful struggle with her gambling addiction.  Unfortunately, the fact that she’s being punished is what is likely to matter to most people. 

So, first, let’s define "punishment."  Broadly speaking, punishment is the suffering, pain, and loss inflicted by our judicial system as a penalty in retribution for a crime for which you or I (or perhaps both of us!) have been convicted after the due process of law.  The dictionary lists a number of categories of punishment that society in general or people in particular may dole out to us: capital, company, corporal, cruel and unusual, physical, temporal, and self.

Of course, from almost the very instant we’re born punishment is available to us.  We don’t even necessarily have to earn it as we must earn food, shelter, clothing or all of the pleasant aspects of human life.  Yes, indeed -- we’re actually entitled to it.  Punishment is a birthright available throughout the entire world!  What a bargain! 

We have only anecdotal proof that punishment ever works.  Oh, I know all of the anecdotes that speak of how a parent scolded and spanked a kid so soundly that he or she never again chased a ball into the street.  Then I’ve heard story upon story of testimony from jailed felons who’ve mended their ways as a result of the Christian, Judaic or Muslim ministry they experienced while inside.  My observation would be that Christian, Judaic or Muslim ministries are just as available outside as they are inside prison.  Hence, from the time we begin to reason, we’re indoctrinated with the idea that retribution -- in at least a controlled form -- is just and therefore constitutes justice.

Now I’ve received and meted out my share of punishment throughout my entire life.  (I suppose, in retrospect, that as an adult I’ve even administered punishment to my friends and to my two spouses just as they have to me.)  The purpose of punishment is to send the proverbial message that someone’s actions have damaged one's sense of well-being -- that it hurts -- and that one ought not repeat the offense, thus the angry words or hurtful action.  The bottom line however is that it seldom works.  Punishment and justice, as I see it, aren’t comparable or compatible.

Now, before you get your undies in too much of a bunch, I’m not against controlling people who are out of control.  People who would endanger the safety and security of others must be prevented from doing so.  There must be places where such persons are held and reprogrammed to alter their behavior to the degree that that is possible. When a child is in the grip of punishment, most of the time in confinement is taken up feeling sorry to have been caught.  The child may ultimately regret having hurt or embarrassed parents, friends and perhaps teachers, but that retrospect on their part usually comes afterward once the sting of the punishment has spent itself.

Thus, if there’s little relationship between the cause and the method of alleviating the offense, then that method of offense alleviation needs revising, doesn’t it?

The idea of revenge, retribution, payback or whatever you call it is endemic to almost every western culture as well as some eastern cultures.  Hence, if we teach that punishment is just and much of the time is an antidote to unacceptable behavior, but that teaching proves to be very limited in its truth, isn’t it time to rethink that lesson?

Insisting that you and I are accountable for what we do and devising ways to enforce accountability is one thing and is very legitimate.  Punishment, retribution, the administering of loss or pain only reinforces the power of payback as I see it.  If payback constitutes justice then where is the principle in justice?  If justice is devoid of principle, what is its real value?

The judge was right to order that Sister Mary Anne reimburse those whom she defrauded.  That requirement, as I see it, doesn’t constitute punishment.  That part of the verdict is justice in its most powerful exactitude.

The administration of justice is a legitimate and essential element of any worthwhile society.  Sadly, every society throughout the history of man seems to have made the same mistake: they have made punishment the main ingredient of justice.

That may well be humankind’s greatest sin!

Whether my thinking is inside or outside of the box it seems that I’m forever a candidate for punishment –- the single most popular human right!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

BECAUSE IT MATTERS!

By Edwin Cooney

Okay, here’s the bottom line:  I’m a reasonably comfortable guy when it comes to almost every aspect of my existence.  I’m fortunate enough to have a substantial handful of good friends.  Like most people, I like to think my friends are as comfortable as I am in Twenty-first Century America.  Sadly, however, I must report that many of my friends are so uncomfortable, especially with our current socio/political situation, that seemingly they’re near despair.

A few days ago, I got the piece you’re about to read from my friend. I’ll call him "Zack" although that’s not his name.  Zack believes, as so many do it seems, that for the most part we’re being governed by fools or at least near fools.  Hence, he sent me the following message:

“Remember that I once told you that one day we’ll be ruled by mediocrity.”

H. L. Mencken, born 1880, died 1956, a journalist, satirist and critic, wrote in an editorial appearing in the Baltimore Evening Sun, on July 26, 1920:
"As democracy is perfected, the office of President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will at last reach their heart's desire and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron."

That editorial by Henry Louis Mencken was written during the 1920 presidential campaign that featured Ohio Governor James M. Cox and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the Democrats against Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding and Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge for the Republicans.

Since neither Mencken nor Harding is my topic here, I’ll simply make one observation about each of them.  Warren Harding, except for being a man of the best intentions, in most ways was not suited to be president (although it must be noted that he had several golden presidential moments).  Henry Lewis Mencken was a remarkably brilliant and often irreverent journalist and socio/political commentator.

Like Mencken and such “Founding Fathers" as Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, John Adams, and Governeur Morris, my friend Zack appears to believe that it would be better if we were governed by “our betters.”   Before one examines that belief, it should be remembered that the Constitution leaves it to the states to set voting requirements and that not until the era of Andrew Jackson did most states open the polls to white males who didn’t own property or pay sufficiently high taxes.  Hence, as I see it, if my friend is right, then between 1789 and say 1830, few foolish or moronic things must have occurred in the government of the United States. 

Okay! Let’s see now:

In 1794, the President of the United States, a man named Washington, led a twenty-thousand-man army into western Pennsylvania to collect a federal excise tax on whiskey which poor western farmers rebelled at paying. (Could President Obama get away with such an act today?)

In1794, two Virginia aristocrats named Jefferson and Madison created a political party called Democratic-Republicans as Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, a couple of other aristocrats, created the Federalist Party. This occurred despite President Washington’s advice against the creation of political parties.

In 1795, the Georgia legislature found it necessary to invalidate a huge scandal perpetrated by the previous legislature that sold huge tracks of land in the territory of Mississippi to political insiders at below market prices. It was called the Yazoo land scandal.  The state would ask the federal government to intervene in 1802, which it did, in exchange for the state dropping all claim to any land west of its modern border. (Note: No state's rights advocate objected to the feds agreement to absorb all liabilities by the State of Georgia in the 1802 settlement.)

In 1798, the Federalist Congress, loaded with the “better born,” passed the Alien and Sedition Acts restricting freedom of speech and freedom of the press until 1802.

In 1804, two of the most highly educated men in the country, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, engaged in a duel fatal to Hamilton.

In 1804, President Jefferson, a sometimes thin-skinned aristocrat, attempted to impeach Associate Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase, a signer of Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, for casual but critical remarks about Jeffersonian Democrats which he’d made from the bench.

In 1812, a Congress full of property owners declared a war against Great Britain which it couldn’t possibly win and didn’t, really.

Near the end of 1814, just before the War of 1812 was settled at Ghent, a group of New England Federalist "better borns" called the Hartford Convention to consider seceding from the Union because the war was ruining New England commerce. (Note that this was about 46 years before Fort Sumter.) Finally, in 1819, American bankers and real-estate speculators combined to create the first economic panic or depression in American history.

Of course, this same generation of leaders did a lot of miraculous things, too.

In 1776-81, they broke away from Great Britain and created a republic.

In 1786, they turned down a proposal by either Nathaniel Gorham, President of the Congress, or Friederich Von Steuben (who’d served under Washington during the Revolutionary War) or perhaps Alexander Hamilton to make Prince Henry of Prussia (younger brother of Frederick the Great of Prussia) the first president or possibly king of the United States.

In 1787, 1788 and 1789, they established our federal system of government with its checks and balances.

In the 1790s, they created a currency and a strategy that paid off a huge debt to European nations after the Revolution.

In the early 1800s, they purchased Louisiana, provided capital for public and higher education, railroad and steamboat construction, and built the Erie and other canals vital to the growth of commerce. 

My point is that “the great unwashed” have no monopoly on foolishness or downright narcissism, as H. L. Mencken seemed to insist.

As I’ve written in these pages on countless occasions, I’m merely a student of history. I'm definitely not an historian, as I have no academic standing.  However, I’ve read about some thousand years of British and European history and nearly 500 years of American history and I’ve yet to read of a happy and successful society established and maintained by the best born and the best educated.

Of course, men and women of all ideologies possess and even maintain misgivings about our future.  The very intensity of their skepticism, as I see it, provides a sense of outraged righteousness.  We live amidst mountains of legitimately daunting fears of Radical Islam, federal regulation, changing trends in religion, a valueless currency, global warming, unemployment and even more.  Of course, our security matters to me, to my friend Zack and all those to the right and to the left of us.

I suppose I should be ashamed, but the truth is I’m not.  I think it simply makes good sense to let all of my ideologically certain friends, who are invariably stuffed with “gotcha” debating and talking points, to do my worrying for me.  Meanwhile, I’ll simply luxuriate in Fortress America!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

UNCLE SAM’S TWO-HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY!

By Edwin Cooney

It never fails to grab Sam.  Here he sits every July Fourth for as far back as he can remember at an exceedingly long oaken picnic table.  Off to his left at one end of the table sits Father Time.  At the other end of the table sits George Washington.  Both sides of the huge table accommodate all but one of the rest of the 36 men, in addition to Washington, who have been President of the United States between 1789 and 1985.  At other tables sit men and women, the great and the near great, even a rogue or two like Aaron Burr and Spiro Agnew. “Is that really Frank Sinatra over there?” Uncle Sam wonders.

“Happy two-hundred and thirty-seventh birthday, Uncle Sam,” says Father Time off to Sam’s left.

“Thank you, sir,” responds Sam.

“Sam,” intones George Washington off to Sam’s right, “I know that I speak on behalf of our Creator and all of the American people when I profoundly offer you every kind and inspiring wish in gratitude for your past and hope for your future.

All Sam can think to do is what he does every year in the wake of President Washington’s pronouncements: he bows and salutes.

“It wasn’t as easy at the beginning as some of our school children have been taught, was it, Sam?” Ben Franklin’s voice came from behind Sam’s left shoulder.  Before Sam can respond, Martha Washington places a huge plate of potato salad, baked beans, corn on the cob, hotdogs, barbecued chicken and a hamburger in front of Sam.

“No, it wasn’t,” Sam replies “I’ve been told that just a day or two before I was born it was possible that the delegates to the Second Continental Congress from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and South Carolina might not have voted for Richard Henry Lee’s June 7^th Resolution for Independence.  If it hadn’t been for men like Caesar Rodney who rode almost nonstop from Delaware to Philadelphia, I might have been a late arrival or perhaps I might not have been born at all.”

“It really was a hell of a cliff hanger!” came the voice of Robert Livingston, one of the New York Colony’s delegates to the Second Continental Congress.  “I was for the resolution and sat on the drafting committee, but so strong was the opposition in New York that I was recalled before I could vote for it.” (Chancellor Livingston occupies a special place in Uncle Sam’s heart for two reasons: fourteen years later, as Chancellor of New York State, Livingston would swear in George Washington as America’s first president.  In 1803, Livingston, along with James Monroe, would successfully negotiate with Napoleon Bonaparte for the purchase of the Louisiana Territory.)

“I remember celebrating your first birthday in Philadelphia back in ’77 when the city was loaded with British troops,” commented Dr. Benjamin Rush.  "That was pretty dicey, indeed!”

“Adams and I had a wonderful time in ’78 celebrating your second birthday with royalty from all over Europe, didn’t we, John?” said Franklin to the country’s second president.

“I’m afraid you enjoyed it more than I did, Ben,” said Adams. “I worked at least as hard as you partied to get the French to fully commit to supporting us against Britain,” recalled the rotund New Englander.

“How do you like my baked beans?” came the little voice of Abigail Adams from behind Sam’s right ear.

“They're every bit as tasty as Betsy Ross’s blue hotdogs from last year! Betsy’s been putting food coloring on hotdogs so that there are red hots, white hots, and blue hots every year just like the flag,” said Uncle Sam.

“She only does that,” said Abigail, “because she’s still a little embarrassed by the story which was released by her grandson William Canby to the American History Society of Pennsylvania in 1870 that she’d made the first flag even though she didn’t. It was just in time for the 1876 Centennial celebration of your birthday. She and her first husband John Ross attended Christ Church in Philadelphia with General George and Martha Washington in 1776, but she didn’t make or present the flag to the General.  She only wishes she had,” Abigail added rather cattily.

Conversation throughout the picnic was a mixture of pride and regret as it was every year.  John Adams and Thomas Jefferson regretted all over again that their Federalist and Democratic-Republican followers had politicized the Fourth of July celebrations in the 1790s in Philadelphia, Boston and New York City turning them into partisan parades, parties, and occasional street brawls fueled by drink.

Puffing on his inevitable cigar, Ulysses S. Grant, from his seat next to Abe Lincoln, expressed sorrow that under his first administration in 1870 the Fourth of July became an official federal holiday, but there hadn’t been a clause in the legislation making it a paid holiday for federal workers.

 “I knew you were sorry about that General Grant. That’s why I saw to it that it was a paid holiday for federal workers in the 1938 legislation,” said FDR as he fit a smoke into his long ivory cigarette holder.

“I’ve always been sorry,” said Uncle Sam to John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, "that you both died on my fiftieth birthday.”

“Think nothing of it, Sam,” said Jefferson, “We were glad to do it.  It made us even more famous than we already were.  After all, we were politicians before we were statesmen, Remember, Sam, no one becomes a statesman without first being a politician!”

“Yah! said James Monroe, the only president to have been wounded in the Revolutionary War while fighting under Washington, "but how many people know I also died on July Fourth five years after you fellows did?"

"Well,” said President Warren Harding as he looked up from the card game he was playing with Presidents Martin Van Buren, Chester A. Arthur, Frank Pierce and Andrew Jackson.  “Cal Coolidge, my Vice President and the man who succeeded me upon my death in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel on August 2^nd, 1923, was actually born on the Fourth of July."

“I like to think I was! But I don’t know," replied Coolidge rather shyly as was “silent Cal’s” nature. “It was pretty close to midnight on Wednesday, July 3^rd 1872 when I was born.  Papa hinted once that upon hearing my first cry he might have nudged the hands forward just a bit on the big grandfather clock in our living room.

“Good,” said Uncle Sam, “it’s always nice to have company, especially presidential company."

Suddenly, Father Time, a giant of a man, taller and broader than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln with a remarkably calm manner, was on his feet. Uncle Sam’s birthday cake was on a huge tray.  Its thick frosting contained a facsimile of the autograph of every president and chief justice and a reproduction of the American flag.  Every first lady had contributed her time to baking, layering and decorating the cake.  Uncle Sam rose slowly to his feet, preparing to blow out the two hundred and thirty-seven candles – a task that was getting harder every year.

As he huffed and puffed, he made his annual wish.  Although in keeping with tradition his wish was a silent one, everyone there knew what it was.  It was Uncle Sam’s abiding wish for his fellow Americans: “May there forever be freedom and justice for all!”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY