Thoughts While Sitting in Boston on Patriots’ Day
by Lawrence S. DiCara and Samuel True Adams
Patriots’ Day is an important holiday in Massachusetts. We recognize the contributions of citizens of Middlesex villages and farms who began the American Revolution. How very different Patriots’ Day is today from the third Monday in April forty or fifty years ago when the Boston Marathon was not yet an international event. The two of us have been conducting an ongoing discussion of what it means to be a citizen and, it follows naturally, what it means to be a patriot, for a long time. In our opinion, true patriots not only salute the flag and love the rocks, rills, and templed hills of our country, but also understand that the United States is a nation of laws and not of men and women. Certainly, the last few months in American politics, where governing appears to be by chaos and screaming and tweeting nasty thoughts, has sent many of us to our bookcases. This is the case for these two Boston Latin School graduates, who retreated to their books; there is much to ponder both in history and fiction.
1. WAS DeTOCQUEVILLE RIGHT?
Fifty years after the American Revolution, Alexis DeTocqueville observed what made democracy in early America tick and prosper. DeTocqueville described witnessing an outpouring of patriotism by his American hosts at every turn. So inordinate was this behavior that he described it as “annoying and irritable,” While observing America, DeTocqueville observed this juxtaposition. “There is patriotism...which mainly springs from the disinterested, undefinable, and unhindered feeling that ties a man’s heart to the place where he was born. This instinctive love is mingled with a taste for old habits, respect for ancestors, and memories of the past.” Furthermore, “he knows the law allows him to contribute to the production of this well-being, and he takes an interest in his country’s prosperity, first as a thing useful to him and then as something he has created.”
2. DID ROTH PREDICT THE FUTURE?
In Plot Against America, Philip Roth’s fictional account of the 1940’s, Charles E. Lindbergh is elected President defeating Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lindbergh’s campaign promises to keep our boys out of war on foreign soil. Lindbergh, history tells us, was the most prominent “America Firster;” He was a national hero, given his dramatic solo flight across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis in 1927. History has also confirmed that he was an anti-Semite and a bigot and so committed to the concept of a master race that he fathered numerous children out of wedlock in Germany.
In Roth’s volume, we are reminded that Lindbergh had received a Gold Cross decorated with four swastikas which was bestowed to him on behalf of Adolf Hitler by Air Marshal G?ring. In the weeks following the election, “the new American President traveled to Iceland to meet personally with Adolf Hitler and after a few days of cordial talks to sign an understanding guaranteeing peaceful relations between Germany and the United States. Ten days later the President signed the Hawaii Understanding in Honolulu with Prince Fumimaro Konoye, Premier of the Japanese Imperial Government...” Lindbergh continued to make concessions to Adolf Hitler following their pact. The President spoke from the White House after Hitler had invaded Russia and stated, “with this act...Adolf Hitler has established himself as the World’s greatest safeguard against the spread of communism and its evils.” As Lindbergh’s administration evolved, America became a very different nation, with an escalating suspension of civil liberties in response to emergencies, including anti-Semitic violence.
President Lindbergh considered the press suspect. Whenever questioned, the President would escape Washington flying his own plane – yes, The Spirit of St. Louis - and attend rallies, often in small towns, where he would be hailed as a modern-day savior. Although as some professionals and others would suggest, this is evident of a narcissistic personality disorder as described by Professor Marvin Zonis of the University of Chicago, it is also human nature.
As President Donald Trump has recently suggested in response to criticism about his frequent weekend trips to Florida, “I want to be among my friends.” Richard Nixon felt likewise, often escaping to Key Biscayne or Casa Pacifica, or even Camp David. The legendary Francis X. Bellotti who ran statewide in Massachusetts, we believe eight times over a period of almost 30 years, once suggested that, whenever he had endured a tough day, he would go to Boston’s North End and walk around in the evening so that he too could be “among friends.”
3. WAS BOORSTIN AHEAD OF HIS TIME?
Also, collecting dust in a bookcase in Jamaica Plain is Daniel Boorstin’s The Image which talks about many public figures, including Lindbergh, but also details the differences between a hero and a celebrity. Boorstin was a distinguished historian, later to be the Librarian of Congress. Some found his volume published in the early 60’s to be controversial. He cut through much of contemporary history suggesting that what he referred to as a “new Gresham’s law of American public life”: counterfeit happenings tend to drive spontaneous happenings out of circulation. Certainly, that has been proven true in the last year. Boorstin points out that the hero had disappeared not only from the covers of American magazines where they were so prominent in the first decades of the last century, but also from American fiction. “The central figure in any serious book is more likely to be a victim...the leading roles are played by men who suffer from circumstances...” He makes the case that the celebrity is the person who is known for his well-knownness. We would argue that O.J. Simpson was a hero and now is a celebrity. Lance Armstrong fits into this category as well. He concludes “the celebrity is the creature of gossip, of public opinion, of magazines, newspapers, and the ephemeral images of movie and television screens.” Many of us in Massachusetts think of those who fought on Patriots’ Day as heroes. Boorstein would agree.
4. ARE NOT IMMIGRANTS ALSO PATRIOTS?
We believe that being a patriot also means welcoming others to share the American dream and showing compassion to others less fortunate -- a significant aspect of the religious traditions to which the great majority of Americans adhere. The Old Testament reminds us to always welcome the stranger and to care for orphans and widows as well. The gospel of Matthew Chapter 25 is even clearer: We will be judged by how we treat the most vulnerable among us. We are to welcome the stranger. There are no scriptural readings suggesting vanity and greed as characteristics of any merit.
Did not the original patriots welcome Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat and military officer, whose role in the American Revolution was so significant that he was buried under soil taken from Bunker Hill?” Was not the Revolutionary War General Thaddeus Kosciuszko whose statue is so prominent in Lafayette Square across the street from the White House in recognition of the important role he played in the American Revolution, of Polish descent? Immigrants have fought for America in every war. As John Kennedy often said, “nobody asked me my religion when I was in the Solomon Islands.” Immigrants built our American cities and the infrastructure which opened the West. True patriots cannot condone prohibiting entry to those who can help our nation grow and prosper.
5. WILL HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF?
We also believe that good citizens need to understand history. Erik Larson in Garden of the Beasts reminds us in great detail of the difficulties faced by Ambassador William Dodd, a historian sent by Franklin Roosevelt to serve as Ambassador to Germany beginning in 1933. Notwithstanding his warnings to the American Chamber of Commerce in Berlin in the fall of 1933, many good and decent people, both Americans and Germans, looked the other way as Hitler amassed power, legalized bigotry, and engaged in ongoing activities of violence. Dodd also clashed with the State Department, which throughout the 1930’s recommended the restriction of entry visas for German Jews into the United States.
6. ARE WE ABOUT TO ENTER A CYCLE OF INSTABILITY?
The last time three Presidents in a row served for eight years they were named Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, the latter years of which were often called the Era of Good Feeling. What followed were a number of one term Presidents and, yes a Civil War. Sidney Blumenthal’s recent book about Lincoln reminds us of those sad chapters in our history. Is such chaos in our immediate future?
7. ARE WE ABOUT TO WITNESS A NEWLY INVIGORATED CITIZENRY?
Lastly, true patriots participate in their democracy. History teaches us that a nation can emerge from the crucible of crisis much stronger than when the crisis began. In the aftermath of 9/11 Robert D. Haas commented, “a window of opportunity has opened for a sort of civic renewal that occurs only once or twice a century.” Morley Winograd and Mike Hais in “Millennial Makeover” and Peter Levine in “We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For” also discuss this possible civic renewal. In the weeks following 9/11, Democrats and Republicans supported measures to increase funding for national service initiatives like Americorps. We believe the remedy to propel a newly invigorated citizenry begins with mobilizing voters. There are promising signs from recent special elections in Delaware and Pennsylvania which indicate a prominent increase in voter turnout. Senator Jon Tester (D - Montana) recently spoke of town hall meetings in his district where attendance has increased from 10 to 100 regular voters. Such citizen engagement, he commented, was unprecedented. Voter turnout and citizen participation in general soared in the two decades after World War II. Can we once again shape a national identity blended with the powerful forces exciting the nation summoned from the spirit of patriotism and recognized in the ballots of millions of Americans? Can we remember the examples of those Middlesex farmers and channel the fervor of today’s national activism into votes? Are we about to witness a revival in interest in being a citizen? Here is the past, here is the current ever-changing state of affairs, this could be the future. This is why remembering Patriots Day is important for anyone who is proud to be an American citizen.
Lawrence S. DiCara is a partner at Nixon Peabody LLP and former President of the Boston City Council
Samuel True Adams is the grandson of Hon. Samuel Adams and a fan service coordinator with the Boston Red Sox