IT'S SOMETHING CALLED PRESIDENT'S DAY...Once again, we use the Uniform Holidays Act of 1968 to change our nation's character. Because we can't bring ourselves to single out individual accomplishment anymore, what with the PC police running around, we lump all Presidents - good, bad, and indifferent - into a nice three day weekend. I know this sounds silly to be complaining about, but the disinformation from our major media has got to stop somewhere, right? We have too many children today who couldn't name a President whose picture doesn't appear on our currency...we have to subject them to a campaign that seeks to claim all Presidents deserve our praise. Prepare for the truth....
TODAY IS
WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY...NOT PRESIDENT'S DAY.
For some strange reason, we keep referring to it as President's Day...when there, in fact, is no such federal holiday. The holiday was, is, and always has been known as Washington's Birthday...nothing else. I dare you to look it up if you like...you'll find no such designation of President's Day...only Washington's Birthday. There's even a rumor that President Nixon declared in an Executive Order that we refer to it as "President's Day," but there's NO EVIDENCE to prove it. Presidential records indicate that Nixon merely issued an Executive Order (11582) on 11 February 1971 defining the third Monday of February as a holiday, and the announcement of that Executive Order identified the day as "Washington's Birthday."
So where did this
"President's Day" come from?
Throughout the 19th century, George Washington was THE towering figure of U.S. history to the American public. In honor of the man who commanded the Continental Army and led the American colonies to victory in the Revolutionary War, served as first President of the United States of America, and earned the sobriquet "The Father of Our Country," Washington's Birthday, February 22, was celebrated with more patriotic fervor than any holiday save the Fourth of July. Accordingly, the observance of Washington's Birthday was made official in 1885 when President Chester Alan Arthur signed a bill establishing it as a federal holiday. (Washington was actually born on February 11, 1731, under the Julian calendar in effect at the time of his birth, but his birth date is reckoned as February 22 under the Gregorian calendar adopted in 1752.)
However, the seeds of confusion were sown in 1968 with the passage of a piece of legislation known as Uniform Holidays Bill, intended to create more three-day weekends for federal employees by moving the observance of three federal holidays (Washington's Birthday, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day) from fixed calendar dates to designated Mondays, and by establishing Columbus Day (also to be observed on a Monday) as a new federal holiday. Under this act, from 1971 onwards the observance date of Washington's Birthday would be relocated from February 22 to the third Monday in February. (Oddly enough, this change guaranteed that Washington's Birthday would never again be celebrated on his "actual" birthday of February 22, as the third Monday in February cannot fall any later than February 21.)
Washington's Birthday has become Presidents' Day (or President's Day, or even Presidents Day ? the usage is inconsistent) for many of us because federal holidays technically apply only to persons employed by the federal government (and the District of Columbia). Individual state governments do not have to observe federal holidays ? most of them generally do (and most private employers and school districts follow suit), but federal and state holiday observances can differ. For example, former Confederate states have observed several holidays not recognized at a federal level (such as June 3, Jefferson Davis Day), and controversial Arizona governor Ev Mecham drew headlines in 1987 when one of his first official acts upon inauguration was to rescind an Executive Order issued by the previous governor that had established the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. (a federal holiday) as an Arizona state holiday.
Although Lincoln's Birthday had never been designated as a federal holiday, it was observed as a state holiday in many parts of the country. However, after additional federal holidays were created for Columbus Day and the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. (in 1971 and 1986, respectively), some states dropped the observance of Lincoln's Birthday as a separate holiday in order to maintain a fixed number of paid holidays per year. (And, of course, some states never observed Lincoln's Birthday in the first place.)
As a result, we now have a hodgepodge of state holiday schedules in the USA: some states still observe Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays as separate holidays, some states observe only Washington's Birthday, some states commemorate both with a single Presidents' Day (or Lincoln-Washington Day), and some states celebrate neither. And there are odd exceptions such as Alabama, which has designated the third Monday in February as a day commemorating both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, even though Jefferson was born in April. (A few states have even moved their observances of Washington's Birthday, Lincoln's Birthday, and Presidents' Day to November or December in order to lengthen the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday periods without creating additional paid holidays.)
Translation? It has no other meaning than any other holiday designed to get federal employees an extra long weekend. In other words, we'd rather devalue individual accomplishment in order to take a long weekend. It's kind of sad when you think about it that way...
Happy Birthday, George Washington...your country misses you.
