Just the Facts, Ma'am

The Delaware Regiment at the Battle of Long Island, 27 August 1776. Domenick D'Andrea for the U.S. National Guard (public domain).



Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, fresh from his triumphs in the GOP primary in Florida and the Nevada caucus, leaving former House speaker Newt Gingrich in the dust on both occasions, said the following yesterday:

"We are the only people on the Earth that put our hand over our heart during the playing of the national anthem. It was FDR who asked us to do that, in honor of the blood that was being shed by our sons and daughters in far-off places."

A short piece in today's Washington Post finds fault with this statement on several bases.

First of all, the writer, Glenn Kessler, expresses amazement that Romney, who ran the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, doesn't remember seeing athletes of other countries besides those of the United States putting their hands over their hearts during the playing of their national anthems. Maybe he has a short memory!

Second, there is no evidence that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself said that Americans should put their hands on their hearts during the playing or singing of the national anthem. True, the U.S. Flag Code does call for citizens to place their hand over their hearts both during the Pledge of Allegiance and the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner." But that comes from a directive at the time of World War II in 1942 when the United States was at war with Nazi Germany.  It was felt that the old salute looked too much like the Nazi salute! Get those hands down.

According to Kessler, who had an email communication with Richard J. Ellis, a professor at Williamette College, and author of To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance, there is no evidence whatsoever that FDR himself asked that Americans put their hands over their hearts during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner or the Pledge of Allegiance. So those are the facts, my friends. For more go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker.

I was reading yesterday on the Maryland State Archives website about the origin of the term "The Maryland Line" for the Maryland troops of the American Revolution.  Here we come across more myth and misinformation.  Read on. . . .

The legend is that the first U.S. president, General George Washington, conferred the name "The Maryland Line" because of his gratitude for the bravery of the 400 Maryland soldiers who protected the rear of his army at the time of the Battle of Brooklyn (aka Battle of Long Island) in August 1776, when they saved the American army by themselves taking grievous losses while his troops withdrew across the Gowanus Creek ahead of a massive army of Redcoats, saving General Washington's bacon and likely that of the nascent United States as well.

In fact, according to Ryan Polk, Research Archivist at the Maryland State Archives in a 2005 article, "Holding the Line: The Origin of 'the Old Line State'", while it does seem as if the name "Maryland Line" was indeed a name conferred on the Maryland Troops for their bravery and does date first from the time of the Battle of Brooklyn, there is no evidence in anything that Washington wrote to prove that he came up with the name. I had suspected that the name might also have some relationship to the a nickname for Maryland as "The Old Line State" which I had thought had to do with the Mason-Dixon Line, which of course is the dividing line between Maryland and Pennsylvania and also the technical divide between the rebel "South" and the "North" in the Civil War.

However, Mr. Polk writes: "Though the first use of the name remains elusive, the history of the name does not support a relationship to the Mason-Dixon line. Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon finished surveying their boundary line by 1768. No hint of the name appeared before the Maryland Line fought in the Battle of Long Island on 27 August 1776."

So there you have it my friends, Just the Facts, Ma'am!


Your App Doesn't Love You

I stepped out of the cab into a river
of cold storm water this morning;
now at lunchtime, sun, brisk breeze,
the yellow blossoms of daffodils nod.

I walk up the hill toward the hotel,
see cops with dogs, reminder of
the Jihad-fearing times we live in--

over the trees, the white dome
of Thomas Jefferson's memorial;
the Post prints his hand-written
list of slaves he owned; beyond--

the monument to Martin Luther King
lies hidden across the Tidal Basin.

Christopher T. George

* This poem was written at the end of January.
A couple of hours later around 3:15 pm, I
received an email to say that the Secret Service
were closing off 12th Street and that we better
leave. Don't know what it was about... maybe a
visiting dignitary or Biden going to meet someone?


War of 1812 Talk by Christopher T. George

BRITISH REAR ADMIRAL GEORGE COCKBURN ATTACKS HAVRE DE GRACE – MAY 3, 1813 – NEW FINDINGS, Wednesday, February 8, 2012, 7:30 P.M. Historical Society of Harford County Headquarters, 143 North Main Street (at the corner of Main and Gordon Streets), Bel Air, Maryland. Sponsored by the Archeological Society of Northern Chesapeake (ASNC). No Charge. http://www.harfordhistory.net/.  Note: Archeological Society meeting starts at 6:30 P.M.


Also see a new blog I have started at http://chrisgeorgewarof1812.blogspot.com/

And a new entry on my Jack the Ripper blog at http://blog.casebook.org/chrisgeorge/ -- I am on TV tonight in Canada.  Check the blog out!

Spitballs.... Great Political Theater!

CNN's Southern Republican debate last night in Charleston, South Carolina, began with fireworks as host John King attempted to get former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to address a televised claim by his second wife that he had requested an open marriage, and Gingrich heatedly attacked King for what he described as the despicable act of beginning a Presidential debate with such a scurrilous charge, much to the delight of the audience.  It was great political theater and couldn't have played better into Gingrich's hands, combined with Newt's master stroke of releasing his tax returns. Meanwhile, nominal Republican front runner Mitt Romney has refused to disclose his tax returns and badly fumbled his response to King about when he might do so.  This once more reinforced the idea that Romney is a bumbler.  Mister Vanilla Ice Cream.

Last night's debate performance and the associated political theater will put Gingrich in a good position to win Saturday's South Carolina primary, considering that he was already rising in the polls based on a likewise solid debate performance in last Monday's debate.  Romney's candidacy meanwhile received another blow when it was announced early yesterday that a final count of votes in the Iowa caucus of a couple of weeks ago shows that Rick Santorum and not Romney had won the vote, although by an extremely narrow margin.  Whoops.  Also with Texas governor dropping out yesterday and backing Gingrich, the momentum has seemed to go to Newt.

Romney might still go on to win the Republican nomination but Gingrich will certainly have given him a scare.  Coming as he does from the South, from neighboring Georgia, the ex-House Speaker might have been expected to have an advantage, as almost a favorite son, just as Romney was anticipated to have an advantage in New Hampshire, right next to the state of Massachusetts where he had served as governor and instituted the "Romneycare" so controversial today among the Republicans he will need to win the presidency.  Whether any Gingrich surge and possible win in South Carolina will vault him to the nomination remains to be seen.  There's a long, long way to go, it seems.

MSNBC’s Bill Press has stated, “Newt is a GOP Suicide Bomber.”

See http://AmericaNeedsMitt.com/blog/2012/01/13/msnbcs-bill-press-newt-gop-suicide-bomber/


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In honor of the Bicentennial of the War of 1812, I have begun a new blog on the war at http://chrisgeorgewarof1812.blogspot.com/.  There I intend to share news of upcoming events on the War of 1812 including speaking engagements in which I will be featured as well as my views on the conflict.  It is one of the most significant events in the history of the United States but a war that has been woefully overlooked. Hopefully we can remedy that in the next three years.


 
Not a new line-up of Republican candidates but Chris, right, as a presenter at the "Flag Making in the Early Republic: The Fourth Annual Symposium" hosted by the Star Spangled Banner Flag House Association, Inc., March 31, 2001. From left to right: Marilyn Zoidis, Sally Johnston, Stephen W. Hill, Fenella France, Earl P. Williams, and Christopher T. George. Photograph by Richard R. Gideon.