415A. Have we betrayed the Fourth?

     It's Independence Day, the Fourth of July.  And hot.  Just as it was hot when the Founding Fathers got together in Philadelphia in July 1776 to write their famous Declaration.  So how have I begun this holiday?  By reading their Declaration.  It took all of nine minutes (I timed myself).  I'm not boasting about it, because until a few years ago I did anything except read it or otherwise honor it on the Fourth.  Its lucid prose reads beautifully, though one short section is an embarrassment, mentioning King George's inciting "domestic insurrections amongst us" (presumably slave rebellions) and attacks on the frontiers by "merciless Indian Savages" -- two matters we'd rather not be reminded of.  Even so, a remarkable document.  But in it, as in our Constitution, the word "Democracy" does not appear once.  The Founders were founding a republic, a government by the consent of the governed, without a monarch or hereditary nobility, but not a democracy.  For them, democracy meant mob rule, and that they didn't want.  Thirteen years later the French Revolution, with mobs parading severed heads of victims in the streets, would confirm many of them in this opinion.



     So what are my plans for today?  Having read the Declaration, I have no other plans.  It's hot, so I'll stay in and hug my fan.  (Only the living room has A/C, and I'm rarely in there, except when I have guests.)  I'll continue reading about how to use social media, and continue to wonder what happened to my gift to the Arbor Day Foundation in Nebraska, which encourages us all to plant trees. (The gift, conveyed electronically over a month ago, disappeared in transit and hasn't been seen since.  Ah, the wonders of technology!)

    So here's a question I'm putting to all my friends: What are you doing on the Fourth?  I know you're busy, so just answer in a sentence or two, but be honest.  My own plans are hardly grandiose.  I want to see what Americans really do on this hot, hot holiday.  The more answers I get, the more valid my conclusions, which I will then publish.

Here's how the National Archives in Washington does it.

     George Washington Plunkitt, a New York City politico of the late nineteenth century, told how five thousand Tammany men assembled every year in Tammany Hall on July 4 to hear the reading of the complete Declaration, followed by patriotic speeches and a glee club.  They sat in that packed hall for four hours, sweating (no air-conditioning back then), aware of 100 cases of champagne and 200 kegs of beer awaiting them in the basement, once the speeches were concluded, but listened intently.  And when  the Declaration was read, they erupted in an explosion of hurrahs. Tammany was as corrupt a system as ever existed, but its stalwarts were, in the traditional sense, true patriots who believed in the United States of America.  And what did the reformers do on the Fourth? According to Plunkitt, they ran off to Newport or the Adirondacks.

Fireworks in Washington.  This is how we celebrated it
when I was growing up in Illinois.

Is it okay to make money off of it?

     Have we betrayed the Fourth?  Are we no better than the reformers Plunkitt so scorned and detested?  Or is there more than one way to mindfully celebrate it?  Let's find out.  Tell me what you're doing this Fourth.  I won't use your name, but what you say will tell me a lot.

Coming soon: Descent into Darkness.  Then: Kill.

©  2019  Clifford Browder