Reading at the Crossroads

Reading at the Crossroads is an archive for columns and letters which appeared in the Terre Haute Tribune Star. I also blog here when my patience is exhausted by what I feel is irritating, irrational and/or ironic in life. --gary daily

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Location: Terre Haute, Indiana, United States

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Saturday, July 18, 2026

George Washington's Cherry Tree and the Trump/Republican Party Hatchet

 


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Terre Haute Tribune Star, July 18, 2026

Letter: The search for historical truths
“I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet.” So confessed 6-year-old George Washington.
Parson Mason Locke Weems introduced the famous cherry tree confession to the public around 1800, soon after George Washington’s death. The tree, the hatchet, the confession, it was all a lie. But this lie became a story repeated to children for generations. In this way it became part of our history.
A recent White House report is titled "Saving America's Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage." (Always beware of any report or book whose subtitle is five times the length of the title.)
Read this report and you will find this: "As it stands today, it would benefit most Americans, especially parents bringing their children for a tour, if the Smithsonian's flagship history museum had a label at every entrance that reads: 'Warning: the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don't want you to love your country.'”
This warning expresses fear and ignorance, not love for our nation’s history. Much of our history is complex. Much of our history was once hidden in silence. All of American history can serve to strengthen us as citizens and as a nation.
Highly trained professionals at the National Smithsonian Museum of American History acknowledge that the George Washington tale is a fable invented by Weems and that his lie was turned into a myth. It doesn’t “erase” the importance, the impact of the cherry tree myth. It trusts Americans with a fuller truth, a truth about the past that strengthens us.
I’m predicting that someday this museum will exhibit a copy of this bloated Parson Trump report. It will provide the background and factual details of how its politically motivated false warnings threatened the search for historical truths. Just part of the job of dedicated historians who love their country and the truth.
— Gary Daily

posted by gary daily | 11:38 AM | 0 comments

Friday, July 03, 2026

Unalienable Rights --1776 and 2026

Terre Haute Tribune Star, July 3, 2026

Readers’ Forum – Obtaining fullness of ‘unalienable rights’

             "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” — Samuel Johnson 

Dwayne Owens (Terre Haute Tribune Star, “In a patriotic season,” June 23, 2026) deserves our thanks. It is a good thing to think about patriotism and our nation’s origins as we celebrate 250 years of achievement and struggle.

We too often take the achievements for granted. But Owens, as with so many, demonstrates the inclination to go silent, ignore, or attempt to hide the elements keeping us from fulfilling the aspirations so eloquently stated in our founding document, the Declaration of Independence.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The “all men” the Founding Fathers referred to in this justly famous and challenging passage did not include those in slavery. As Frederick Douglass thundered in 1852, “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”

And four years earlier, at Seneca Falls, New York, a convention of women and male supporters (including Frederick Douglass) also brought the “all men” limitation to light.

The Declaration of Sentiments, their founding document, paraphrased the 1776 Declaration. It rang out: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, . . . . “ And with determined clarity the 1848 revolutionaries stated: “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her.”

Names of patriots, known and unknown today, courageously signed the Declaration of Independence. They “mutually pledg[ed] to each other [their] Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor.” They knew what they were doing.

Today, after 250 years, the descendants of slaves and the women of this nation persist in their struggle to obtain the fullness of “certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” They know what they are doing.

           “No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.” — Barbara Ehrenreich 

— Gary Daily, Terre Haute


posted by gary daily | 11:37 PM | 0 comments