OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, MAY 30, 2016
THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
‘OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE
PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE’
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
President Abraham Lincoln
delivered this address at the ded-
ication of the cemetery at Gettys-
burg, Pa., on Nov. 19, 1863.
our score and seven years ago
our fathers brought forth on
this continent, a new nation, con-
ceived in Liberty, and dedicated to
the proposition that all men are cre-
ated equal.
Now we are engaged in a great
civil war, testing whether that
nation, or any nation so conceived
and so dedicated, can long endure.
We are met on a great battleield of
that war. We have come to dedicate a
portion of that ield, as a inal resting
place for those who here gave their
lives that that nation might live. It is
altogether itting and proper that we
should do this. But, in a larger sense,
we cannot dedicate – we cannot
consecrate –we cannot hallow – this
F
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Members of the Old Guard Pvt. Brandon Hyer, left, from Kansas City,
Kan., and Pvt. Brad Dixon of Baltimore, Md., place flags in front of
headstones at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., Thursday.
Soldiers were to place nearly a quarter of a million U.S. flags at the
cemetery as part of a Memorial Day tradition.
ground. The brave men, living and
dead, who struggled here, have con-
secrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will lit-
tle note, nor long remember what
we say here, but it can never forget
what they did here. It is for us the
living, rather, to be dedicated here to
the uninished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced.
It is rather for us to be here ded-
icated to the great task remaining
before us — that from these hon-
ored dead we take increased devo-
tion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devo-
tion – that we here highly resolve
that these dead shall not have died
in vain — that this nation, under
God, shall have a new birth of free-
dom – and that government of the
people, by the people, for the peo-
ple, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln
Today is about
the cost of war
Every war creates a new
generation of veterans
oday we honor those who made the ultimate sacriice —
giving their life because their country sent them to war.
There was a time when that we are still too far away
Congress contained many from learning this lesson.
veterans. Because there is no
draft, there are now few vet-
ut war is not the true sub-
erans in the House or Senate.
ject for Memorial Day.
There is always plenty of war We honor the personal sac-
rhetoric, but very little per- riices that men and women
spective based on experience. have made in the name of our
AP Photo/Matt York
Passengers
retrieve
their
luggage
after
their
flights
Friday
at
Sky
Harbor
International
Airport
in Phoenix.
This also is true of the presi- nation and its Constitution.
dency. Neither Barack Obama
We who live in the relative
nor any of the three candidates comfort of 2016 cannot ignore
seeking to replace him has these sacriices. We cannot com-
that it seems to be able to get away
By GAIL COLLINS
with squishing people into smaller
New York Times News Service
served in the military.
mend one soldier’s valor and
and smaller spaces. Last month, Sen.
Obama — elected in part minimize another’s, depend-
Chuck Schumer of New York offered
ummer is upon us, and we
due to a perception he would ing on whether we deem one a
an amendment to a bill reauthorizing
are facing important travel
the Federal Aviation Administration
quickly disentangle the U.S. “good war” and the other not.
decisions.
that would have imposed a morato-
What we honor this day is
from wars on the other side
Such as who to blame when we
rium on reductions in seat size and
space between rows. It failed, 54-42.
of the world — continues all selless service to the coun- get stuck in interminable airport
Nobody spoke out against the
lines.
these years later to preside over try. But if this day is to be any-
proposal, but only one Republi-
persistent and deadly military thing but an excuse for a day
So
many
can, Susan Collins of Maine, voted
o
p
t
i
o
n
s
.
for it. We salute Susan Collins, who
engagements in countries few off from work, we must put
There’s
the
has been, for a number of years, vir-
Americans would otherwise meat on the bones of otherwise g o v e r n m e n t ,
tually the entire population of the
but how many
Moderate Republican Caucus.
set foot in. Like most mod- empty promises.
times can you
AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews
When Schumer lies, his irst
ern U.S. political elites, mili-
Our president and Congress can complain
Transportation Security Admin- move is to empty the seat pocket in
tary service is about projecting aren’t unique in being shielded about Congress
istration officers, center, wait to front of him.
in
the
course
screen travelers at LaGuardia
“I take out the magazine and the
American power abroad and from the realities of modern
of a lifetime?
Airport Friday in New York.
airsickness bag so I have an extra
protecting American interests. warfare. Although more serve There’s the
eighth of an inch,” he said in a
Gail
interview.
Neither they nor their imme- from working-class areas like public — air
Collins
Heaven forfend phone
trafic up 12
It’s a matter of some passion —
diate families ever have any ours, the shared experience of percent since
the presidents of three airlines
we mess with when
actual “skin in the game.”
serving in America’s defense 2011. But really, people, don’t
visited Schumer’s ofice for discus-
blame yourself.
sion of a totally unrelated issue, he
the business
For a majority of Americans, is increasingly uncommon.
Let’s pick a rant that’s good for
moved the coffee table so it was an
Memorial Day is most mean-
History teaches the dan- you, good for me, good for the lines
model.
inch from their knees. “I said: ‘OK,
now you know how it feels.’”
ingfully about the veterans ger faced by powerful nations in security: Make the airlines stop
charging fees for checked baggage. a number that never includes details
But about the bags.
who are still actively endeav- where the majority of the cit-
Seems simple, doesn’t it? Plus, if like the special fees for bags, food,
Rather than reducing the num-
oring to live following the end- izenry no longer remembers you do manage to make it to your canceling a reservation, booking by ber of bags in security lines, the air-
these are the same people phone, sitting in a minimally more lines would like the government to
less years of war begun after the hardship and realities faced light,
who will be announcing there’s a $3 comfortable emergency row or, in deal with the problem by adding
the craven attacks of Sept. 11, by its defenders. It becomes far fee if you want a snack.
some cases, requesting a pillow.
more workers to screen them. And
The
largest
airlines
charge
$25
Shouldn’t
the
airlines
offer
up
the perpetually beleaguered Trans-
2001.
too easy to expend their lives
for the irst checked bag, thus the baggage fee as a token of soli- portation Security Administration is
How easy it still is for old for meager pay to achieve too encouraging people to drag their darity with their miserable passen- going to spend $34 million to hire
men to start wars that burn up little, then bringing them home belongings through the airport, clog- gers? The idea has come up. Home- more people and pay more overtime
ging the X-ray lines and slowing land Security Secretary Jeh Johnson this summer. Which, it assured the
the lives of the young. The and forgetting them.
the boarding process as everybody asked the airlines to “consider pos- public, is not really going to solve
Iraq War especially deserves
Repairing the disconnect ights to cram one last rolling duf- sibly” this modest bow to air travel much of anything.
(Who, you may ask, pays for the
to be remembered as a “war between decision-makers and fel into the overhead compartment. sanity. Two U.S. senators, Edward
The idea that travelers should be Markey of Massachusetts and Rich- security lines anyway? For the most
of choice” launched by polit- these sacriices is essential to the hit by an extra charge for, um, hav- ard Blumenthal of Connecticut, part you the taxpayer do. Also you
ical leaders who never per- long-term survival of America’s ing luggage began in 2008, when wrote a letter to the airlines asking the passenger pay a special security
cost of fuel went through the them to just drop the fees during the fee on your tickets. Which Congress
sonally risked a drop of their great experiment in democracy. the
roof. We understood the airlines’ high-trafic summer months.
tends to grab away from the TSA for
own blood defending the
Meanwhile, genuinely hon- pain, sort of. Maybe. But now fuel
We pause now for the sound of use in all-purpose deicit reduction.
I know, I know.)
nation.
oring veterans means remem- prices have fallen into the cellar. silence and crickets chirping.
The airlines are taking in stupen-
The airlines have maximized
A spokesman for Delta Air Lines,
President Ulysses S. Grant bering them and tending to their dous proits — last year nearly $26 proits by making travel as mis- which took in more than $875 mil-
— as good a general as the needs 365 days of the year, not billion after taxes, up from $2.3 bil- erable as possible. Boeing found lion on baggage fees last year, told
in 2010.
a way to cram 14 more seats into The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. ever had — said, “There just this one. Memorial Day is lion Yet
the baggage fees are still its largest twin-engine jetliner by that bowing to the extremely mod-
never was a time when, in my only the start, not the inish, of with us. In fact, they’ve gone up reducing the size of the lavatories. est Markey-Blumenthal request for
opinion, some way could not recognizing the debt we owe by about two-thirds. Last year, the Bloomberg quoted a Boeing oficial a summer suspension of the bag-
nation’s airlines made more than as reporting that “the market reac- gage fee wouldn’t “really help alle-
be found to prevent the draw- to veterans. Truly honoring $3.8 billion off what I believe it is tion has been good — really posi- viate a lot.” It would also, he said,
ing of the sword.” Our sad them means embodying their fair to call a scam. It’s also an excel- tive.” We presume the market in require a “considerable change to
way to make your prices look question does not involve the actual the business model.”
drumbeat of wars in the 20th values and honor in our own lent
Heaven forfend we mess with
lower than they really are when passengers.
people surf for the cheapest ticket,
But the industry is so powerful the business model.
and 21st centuries informs us lives every day of the year.
T
B
Memorial weekend rant about baggage
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