To: Jamessmith who wrote (6399 ) 2/13/1998 6:30:00 PM From: Dwight E. Karlsen Read Replies (2) | Respond to
All: (particularly to James) I encourage everyone to read the following, from a book I purchased in Washington DC at the Lincoln Memorial, called "The Book of Presidents". I type in the following from page 6 of the book:the exposure to public criticism that each must endure. Since the founding of the Republic there have always been citizens---writers, cartoonists, editors---who were eager to exercise their freedom by taking the President to task on any issue, sometimes in the most immoderate terms. At the time that Washington was heralded as "The Father of His Country" he was also called "Step-Father of his Country" and "An American Caesar," and accused of being "treacherous in private friendship and a hypcrite in public life." [sound familiar?] Abuse of the President and over-zealous criticism of the Government during John Adams's administration---he was called a "despot" and burned in effigy---helped bring the restrictive Sedition Law into being, but Jefferson, who recognized that the law was unconstitutional , subjected himself to the most outrageous vilification. A Federalist cartoon depicted Jefferson as a drunken anarchist; campaign orators went so far ast to question the legitimacy of his birth. Later Presidents fared little better: Jackson was mocked as "King Andrew"; Lincoln was called a "baboon," and "monster," and a "butcher," and threatened with flogging, hanging and burning at the stake, as well as the fate that was finally his. Johnson was castigated as a "drunkard," a "traitor," and a "faithless demagogue"; Theodore Roosevelt was labelled "The bloody hero of Kettle Hill"; Wilson a "despot"; and Franklin Roosevelt a "dictator" and "the paranoic in the White House." With such excesses must each President live: among the rights the President is sworn to preserve is the right to speak freely , and most Presidents, while defending the principle, have been forced to suffer from the practice.
