George Washington, our first National Hero

Today, 2/19/07, being Presidents' Day, is a good time to look at some of our first president's, George Washington's, writings. I am using for that purpose selections from fifteen of his addresses and letters contained in A Library of American Literature, Charles Webster & Co, New York, 1892, vol. 3 (pp. 146-174). His actual birthday, of course, is February 22nd (in 1732) and, until 1970, used to be celebrated on that day; but, beginning in 1971, it has been joined with the celebration of Abraham Lincoln's birthday (February 12th) as Presidents' Day (on the third Monday of February).

George could be self-effacing at times. In an address to the Continental Congress on June 16, 1775, in response to his appointment as commander-in-chief of the Continental American army at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, he declares:

I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.

In a letter to his wife Martha (whom he calls "Patsy") dated just two days later (June 18, 1775), he contends that:

I have used every endeavor to avoid it (his appointment), not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity...

Even in his "Farewell Address to the People of the United States of America" at the end of his presidency in 1797, he speaks of "the inferiority of my qualifications."

In a letter dated February 10, 1776 to a friend, Washington bemoans the condition of his army. He is particularly despondent over the loss of the American forces--which he did not command--to the British at the Battle of Bunker Hill, fought on June 17,1775, which the British won but at a heavy loss of their men killed.

I know the unhappy predicament I stand in; I know that much is expected of me; I know that without men, without arms, without ammunition, without anything fit for the accommodation of a soldier, little is to be done; and, what is mortifying, I know that I cannot stand justified to the world without exposing my own weakness and injuring the cause, by declaring my wants, which I am determined not to do...

Making him even more despondent is the shabby condition of his army.

So far from my having an army of twenty thousand men well armed, I have been here with less than one-half that number, including sick, furloughed, and on command, and those neither armed nor clothed, as they should be. In short, my situation has been such, that I have been obliged to use art to conceal it from my own officers.

Two years later, things have not gotten better. In a letter from Valley Forge, where he and his ragtag army have spent a miserable winter, he writes on April 21, 1778 of officers deserting:

The spirit of resigning commissions has long been at an alarming height, and increases daily...Not less than ninety have resigned to me.

In another book (The Oxford History of the American People, by Samuel Eliot Morison) it is told that he wrote to another friend, just prior to his inauguration as the first president of the new United States on April 30, 1789, of:

...an ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skills, abilities, and inclinations which is necessary to manage the helm.

Some seven months after the British were defeated at Yorktown, a colonel in the Continental army during the war, one Lewis Nicola, "acting on behalf of a group of like-minded Continental army officers, Nicola supposedly proposed to Washington that he use the army to effect a coup d'état against Congress and set himself up as a king of the United States" ("The Nicola Affair," by Robert F. Haggard, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, June 2002). Washington's response is scathing:

I must review (your proposal) with abhorrence and reprehend with severity...you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable...Let me conjure then, if you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish those thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of a like nature.

In a letter dated April 4, 1784 to the wife of Lafayette, the French general who came to the aid of the Continental forces during the Revolution, Washington writes:

Freed from the clangor of arms and the bustle of a camp, from the cares of public employment and the responsibility of office, I am now enjoying domestic ease under the shadow of my own vine and my own fig-tree; and in a small villa, with the implements of husbandry and lambkins around me, I expect to glide gently down the stream of life, till I am entombed in the mansion of my fathers.

However, he was not going to "glide gently down the stream of life." Four years later, he was nominated to be his country's first president. In a letter dated September 22, 1788 he writes:

Notwithstanding my advanced season of life, my increasing fondness for agricultural amusements, and my growing love of retirement (and) my decided predilection for the character of a private citizen...

he says that he will serve in that office.

In his "Farewell" address cited above, he states that:

The name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism...With slight shades of difference, you have the same Religion, Manners, Habits, and political Principles.

Given the partisan politics of today, we can only smile at Washington's aversion to political parties. Further in the "Farewell" address, he says:

Let me...warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party...It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.

Still further, he states that:

Religion and morality are indispensable supports (to "political prosperity")...(They are the) great Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens.

Another of his exhortations which makes us smile today is that against foreign entanglements.

Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful (he likes that word) foes of Republican Government.

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign Nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little Political connections as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.

There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from Nation to Nation. 'Tis an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

After this farewell address, Washington did retire to Mount Vernon and "enjoy domestic ease under the shadow of his own vine." But for only two years. It is unfortunate that this great man was cheated out of seeing his country move into the 19th Century--he died just 18 days before that event on December 14, 1799.

Obama's poor judgment. Richardson my choice.

Until recently, Barack Obama seemed to me like an attractive new face on the political scene. Until his winning a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2004, the vast majority of Americans had probably never heard of him. He came across to me as intelligent, articulate, and possessed of a sharp wit. In short, a man with a lot of potential for his future career.

But, lately, he seems less attractive to me. For one thing, I heard that he supported state legislatures passing laws requiring large corporations to spend a certain percentage of their payroll costs on health care for their employees (such as the law passed in Maryland in 2005). The targets of these types of legislation are companies like Wal-Mart. An argument can be made that legislation has long regulated employment practices as to child labor, workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation, minimum wages, and others; so why not health care? A simple answer is that trying to solve our national health care crisis by loading more of the cost onto employers is not the way to go–instead, there is going to have to be a larger umbrella–at the national level–to deal with the problem, perhaps some form of "socialized medicine."

But more of a reason to feel that he lacks the stature of a serious candidate for the presidency is his questionable judgment. It seems that he has succumbed to the blandishments of his backers that he is, indeed, presidential material–which I believe will hurt his future opportunities. Had he decided to serve his term(s) in the Senate with distinction and/or serve an appointment to a high-level post in the Federal government, he might in ten or twelve years have earned such a stature. But, right now, his experience and background, with just two years in the Senate, doesn’t measure up as a serious candidate for the presidency.

The quip that Abraham Lincoln had only served two years in the U.S House of Representatives before coming president in 1860 (which I have heard a time or two from talking heads) has little merit as an analogy. A U.S. president today needs far greater capacity than one did 147 years ago, even considering Lincoln’s having the Civil War to deal with.

My favorite for the Democratic nomination to run for the presidency in 2008 is Bill Richardson. His resumé is very attractive: 15 years service in the U.S House of Representatives, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of Energy, and Governor of New Mexico. Additionally, his masters degree from the prestigious Tuft’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, his having grown up in Mexico City and his fluency in Spanish, his activities on the world scene in dealing with North Korea and the Darfur situation in Sudan, and his attractive personality make him an admirable candidate. However, I fear that he lacks a large enough financial war chest to come up with the 2008 nomination.

How did I ever live without an electric toothbrush?

How strange it is that I have lived four-score years and only found out this month that I need to use an electric toothbrush. Why isn’t an old-fahioned toothbrush that I have been using all these years (not the same one, of course, but many new ones of the same sort) no longer up to doing its job? Well, I got the warning from a periodontist who did her thing on me; she told me that, unless I started to use an electric brush, the plaque on my teeth would do me in. Actually, she said that my immune system was fighting hard to ward off the invasion of the bacteria from the plaque into my body.

It’s funny, I never knew that my teeth were miscreants who could do me deadly harm. I checked the periodontist’s diagnosis with my dentist–knowing very little about health matters myself, I always ask for a second opinion on such weighty matters–and was told that, yes, I should go for the electric brush.

Handily, the dentist had one in his office, in an unopened box, which I could buy for $90, which I did. But, I thought, I could probably find one at Wal-Mart or some other retailer for a lot less, in which case I would buy it and would return my $90 one for a refund. But, I went on the Internet and found this particular one (the Oral-B model 9450, which my dentist told me was superior to all others) priced at no less that $108 (plus S&H); so, I was fortunate to have paid only $90.

Although I had thought that electric toothbrushes were for the ultra-lazy, who didn’t want to expend the energy to push and pull an old-fashioned toothbrush around in their mouth, or for trendy faddists, I am now a convert.

It used to be that, when you bought an electrical appliance, you simply plugged it into an electrical outlet in the wall and, right away, started to use it. Not so any more. Anyone who has bought a TV set in recent years (other than a simple little job for less than $100) has gone through the experience of spending hours trying to set up all the software.

Although setting up the electric toothbrush wasn’t quite as complicated as doing so for a TV set, it took far more effort than removing a regular toothbrush from its package and starting to use it. First, I had to set up the "base station" that the brush handset (which looks like a small pipe bomb) sits in. Then, after setting up the base station, putting the brush handset into its proper place in the base station, removing the bottom of the base station to insert the "SmartPlug charger," and connecting it all into a wall electrical outlet, I was told I had to charge the contraption for 12 hours before using it. So, if you buy one, don’t throw away your old toothbrush until your new one is fully charged, and you know how to use it.

Don’t think I am trying to be funny when I say you have to know how to use the electric brush. There are 14 pages of instructions on how to use it in English (17 more in Spanish and French). According to the instructions, some of the procedures you have to master are:

"Personalizing" your brush: "Before getting started, you have to program your toothbrush so that it meets your specific needs." "Programming" a toothbrush? Good grief, what next?

"Brushing technique" and "Brushing modes." Never in my life had I ever thought that, one day, I would have to develop a "brushing mode."

For my use in all these "personalizing" procedures, "brushing techniques," and "brushing modes," there are four different attachments that I can put into my brush handset:

"Power tip," "Floss action," "Pro White," and another little unnamed gadget the use of which I will have to figure out.

I now see that I will have to allot extra time, after I arise in the morning, to figure out just how I am going to brush that day: Will I "Power tip" today? No, I think I did that yesterday, or was it two days ago? Maybe I should do "Floss action" today and plan to do "Pro White" tomorrow.

I can see that I will probably need to keep a diary as to how I brush each day, so that I will get each of those "brushing techniques" in their proper order. That reminds me of when I was in the fifth grade in school: our teacher required us to maintain a personal-hygiene diary, which I believe was called a "Lifebouy Health Chart" (put out for schoolchildren by the maker of Lifebouy soap). We had to enter each time we brushed our teeth, took a bath, washed out hair, drank milk, and did other healthful things. Once a week, our teacher would run down the list of things that we should have done–and, not wanting to force us to admit any shortcomings in front of the class–put us on the honor system to do those healthful things, in the future, for which we previously had been derelict.

I now shudder to think of how I might have to undergo that same ordeal, some 70 years later, when I next see my periodontist and dentist.