Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (May 28, 2018)
4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, MAY 28, 2018 editor@dailyastorian.com KARI BORGEN Publisher JIM VAN NOSTRAND Editor Founded in 1873 JEREMY FELDMAN Circulation Manager DEBRA BLOOM Business Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN Production Manager CARL EARL Systems Manager GUEST COLUMN Memorial Day’s forgotten history I n the years following the bitter Civil War, a former Union general took a holiday originated by former Confederates and helped spread it across the entire country. The holiday was Memorial Day, and this year’s com- memoration on May 28 marks the 150th anniversary of its official nationwide observance. The annual commem- oration was born in the former Confederate States in 1866 and adopted by the United States in 1868. It is a holiday in which the nation honors its military dead. Gen. John A. Logan, who headed the largest Union vet- erans’ fraternity at that time, the Grand Army of the Repub- lic, is usually credited as being the originator of the holiday. Yet when General Logan established the holiday, he acknowledged its genesis among the Union’s former enemies, saying, “It was not too late for the Union men of the nation to follow the example of the people of the South.” I’m a scholar who has written — with co-author Daniel Bellware — a his- RICHARD tory of Memorial Day. Cities and towns GARDINER across America have for more than a cen- tury claimed to be the holiday’s birth- place, but we have sifted through the myths and half-truths and uncovered the authentic story of how this holiday came into being. Generous acts bore fruit During 1866, the first year of this annual observance in the South, a feature of the holiday emerged that made awareness, admiration and eventually imitation of it spread quickly to the North. During the inaugural Memorial Day observances which were conceived in Columbus, Georgia, many Southern par- ticipants — especially women — decorated graves of Con- federate soldiers as well as, unexpectedly, those of their for- mer enemies who fought for the Union. Shortly after those first Memorial Day observances all across the South, newspaper coverage in the North was highly favorable to the ex-Confederates. “The action of the ladies on this occasion, in burying whatever animosities or ill-feeling may have been engen- dered in the late war towards those who fought against them, is worthy of all praise and commendation,” wrote one paper. Almost immediately, the poem circulated across Amer- ica in books, magazines and newspapers. By the end of the 19th century, school children everywhere were required to memorize Finch’s poem. The ubiquitous publication of Finch’s rhyme meant that by the end of 1867, the south- ern Memorial Day holiday was a familiar phenomenon throughout the entire, and recently reunited, country. General Logan was aware of the forgiving sentiments of people like Finch. When Logan’s order establishing Memo- rial Day was published in newspapers in May 1868, Finch’s poem was sometimes appended to the order. ‘The blue and the grey’ Library of Congress Preparing to decorate graves, May 1899. On May 9, 1866, the Cleveland Daily Leader lauded the Southern women during their first Memorial Day. “The act was as beautiful as it was unselfish, and will be appreciated in the North.” The New York Commercial Advertiser, recognizing the magnanimous deeds of the women of Columbus, Geor- gia, echoed the sentiment. “Let this incident, touching and beautiful as it is, impart to our Washington authorities a les- son in conciliation.” Power of a poem To be sure, this sentiment was not unanimous. There were many in both parts of the U.S. who had no interest in conciliation. But as a result of one of these news reports, Francis Miles Finch, a Northern judge, academic and poet, wrote a poem titled “The Blue and the Gray.” Finch’s poem quickly became part of the American literary canon. He explained what inspired him to write it: “It struck me that the South was holding out a friendly hand, and that it was our duty, not only as conquerors, but as men and their fellow citizens of the nation, to grasp it.” Finch’s poem seemed to extend a full pardon to the South: “They banish our anger forever when they laurel the graves of our dead” was one of the lines. It was not long before Northerners decided that they would not only adopt the Southern custom of Memorial Day, but also the Southern custom of “burying the hatchet.” A group of Union veterans explained their intentions in a letter to the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph on May 28, 1869: “Wishing to bury forever the harsh feelings engendered by the war, Post 19 has decided not to pass by the graves of the Confederates sleeping in our lines, but divide each year between the blue and the grey the first floral offerings of a common country. We have no powerless foes. Post 19 thinks of the Southern dead only as brave men.” Other reports of reciprocal magnanimity circulated in the North, including the gesture of a 10-year-old who made a wreath of flowers and sent it to the overseer of the holi- day, Colonel Leaming, in Lafayette, Indiana, with the fol- lowing note attached, published in The New Hampshire Patriot on July 15, 1868: “Will you please put this wreath upon some rebel sol- dier’s grave? My dear papa is buried at Andersonville, (Georgia) and perhaps some little girl will be kind enough to put a few flowers upon his grave.” President Abraham Lincoln’s wish that there be “mal- ice toward none” and “charity for all” was visible in the magnanimous actions of participants on both sides, who extended an olive branch during the Memorial Day obser- vances in those first three years. Although not known by many today, the early evolution of the Memorial Day holiday was a manifestation of Lin- coln’s hope for reconciliation between North and South. Richard Gardiner is an associate professor of history education at Columbus State University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. SOUTHERN EXPOSURE A too-timely presentation S afety plans were already in place in Santa Fe, Texas, when on Friday, May 18, a shooter killed 10 and injured 13, including an armed student resource officer. The school district had an active- shooter plan and two armed police offi- cers walked the halls of the high school, according to the Washington Post. School district leaders had even agreed last fall to eventually arm teachers and staff under the state’s school marshal program. Policies and procedures worked, J.R. “Rusty” Norman, the president of the Santa Fe school district’s board of trustees, told reporters. “Having said that, the way things are, if someone wants to get R.J. MARX into a school to create havoc, they can do it.” The timing, for Seaside, is chilling. ‘Locks, lights, out of sight’ Three days earlier I listened to Sea- side High School principal Jeff Rob- erts present the district’s new safety plan to members of the district’s board of directors. “The fact that we have to have a con- versation like this is incredibly unfortu- nate,” Roberts said. “Seaside High School’s Safety Plan and What Students, Staff and Parents Need to Know” offers four responses to emergency situations: lockout, lockdown, evacuate and shelter. The plan, devel- oped in conjunction with law enforce- ment and emergency planners, presents a “plain-language response for any given scenario.” With years of preparation for the Big One — a Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake and tsunami — Seaside kids are well-versed in evacuation and shelter aspects of the plan. Students’ “You can’t stop this wave” campaign helped raise tsunami awareness throughout the com- munity and spurred passage of the 2015 bond for a new campus in the Southeast Hills out of the inundation zone. Drills for school lockdown and lock- out scenarios are not as common. Dangerous events in the community, or even a vicious dog on the playground, would be examples of incidents calling for a lockout response. Officials secure the perimeter, while students and staff “get inside and lock outside doors.” For Kevin M. Cox /The Galveston County Daily News Police officers in tactical gear move through the scene at Santa Fe High School in Texas after a May 18 shooting. the most part, classes proceed as usual. Students may be required to remain in the building until the threat is mitigated. The lockdown protocol is used when there is a threat inside the school building. In a lockdown, “locks, lights, out of sight” is the mantra. Exterior doors remain open to allow access by first responders. Students are advised to move out of sight, maintain silence, keep inte- rior doors shut and take attendance to account for anyone missing. Communications are kept at a min- imum. Cellphone ringers are silent, although students may text updates and information to parents or first respond- ers. Inside doors are locked; outside doors remain open to allow entry for first responders. If students can safely exit the build- ing, they are advised to run. If they cannot remove themselves from the situation, they should “fight any threat as a last resort,” according to the protocol. “That sounds pretty awful for us to even have to talk about,” Roberts said. “But we want them to know they have to do that.” Security built-in Significant changes in daily campus life are already well underway. “It’s a lit- tle inconvenience now, but it’s worth it,” school board member Michelle Wunder- lich said at the presentation. High school doors formerly open are now locked; visitors are directed to the main west entrance to check into the main office. Staff or students are empow- ered to stop visitors and ask what they are doing in school. New radios increase communica- tion among the leadership team and main office personnel. All staff wear name badges. Emergency response information is posted in every classroom. Seaside’s new campus debuts in Sep- tember 2020. Security is built into the design. Each school will have a secure entry vestibule, according to project manager Jim Henry. Visitors will be stopped, then buzzed into the office area to be assessed. Staff will use card keys for entry and push-but- ton locks installed in the entries. Entry vestibules will be fitted with either bullet-resistant ballistic glass or ballistic laminate. For parents, visitors This conversation goes well beyond students and staff. Parents and visitors can make a difference by discarding their preconceptions about what school was like when “they were growing up.” It’s changed. Here are some other ways to keep our schools safer: • When visiting the high school, use the main west entrance and sign in promptly. • Familiarize yourself with the safety plan’s four emergency protocols. • Widen the conversation — look at how much this community has accom- plished in drawing attention to tsunami awareness. • Don’t lose hope. Every student lost to a shooting is a human being — some- one’s child. R.J. Marx is The Daily Astorian’s South County reporter and editor of the Seaside Signal and Cannon Beach Gazette.