Bethpage-Tribune_2000-02-18

              YOUR OFFICIAL HOMETOWN .NEWSPAPER
VOL. 34 NO. 7 FEBRUARY 18-24, 2000 40 CENTS
President's Day
Until 1971, both February 12 and February 22 were observed as federal public holidays to honor the birthdays of
Abraham Lincoln (February 12) and George Washington (February 22). In 1971 President Richard Nixon pro­claimed
one single federal public holiday, the Presidents' Day, to be observed on the 3rd Monday
of February, honoring all past presidents of the United States of America.
George Washington - Nickname: "Father of his Country."
George Washington, born February 22,1732 in Virginia, was a natural leader, instrumental in creating a
united nation out of a conglomeration of struggling colonies and territories. The first president of the
United States of America is affectionately honored as "the father of his country."
Shortly after his twenty-second birthday, Washington served in the army of King George III of England and
was put in command of a troop of soldiers. The French were settling on British soil and turning the local
Indians against the British colonists. Later, in the war against the French and Indians, Washington com­manded
large troops of soldiers and showed courage that inspired all his soldiers.
At this time, King George III of England dominated the thirteen colonies along the east coast and much
of the surrounding territories. Colonists began to want their freedom, and live with a set of rules based
on democracy, not under the rule of a faraway king. The Boston Tea Party of 1773, a colonial rebellion
against taxes, helped to spark the American Revolution. Washington led and encouraged his inexperi­enced
armies against the British forces for eight years until the colonies won their independence.
Laws for the new country were written into the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The laws called for a President, and here again
George Washington was considered the natural choice. He agreed to serve his country as the first President. George Washington
moved from Mount Vernon, his family home south of Alexandria, Virginia, to New York City, then the capital of the United States.
The trip took a week by horse and carriage. All along the way, people waited eagerly to glimpse the Revolutionary War general and
their first President.
Washington was a reluctant leader. As he inspired his soldiers through two wars, he saw himself serving his country, not leading
it. When he accepted two terms as president, he saw himself serving God and his country in peacetime. He turned down a third
term as president, wishing only to retire to his beautiful family home, Mount Vernon.
A b r a h am Lincoln was born on February 12,1809, in Kentucky, remembered as "Honest Abe." Nomi­nated
by the Republican Party in 1860 as its candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Lincoln won
by a small margin. But with his election, the country began the process of "dividing against itself." South
Carolina had seceded from the Union before he was even inaugurated. Other states followed to form the
Confederate States of America. The North and South were divided, and the Civil War began. The war was not
only over the abolition of slavery, but also the rights of individual states to make their own choices on other
issues.
Abraham Lincoln's oratorical powers brought him to the attention of the nation.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand... This government cannot endure, permanently half-slave
and half-free... I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall but I do expect
it will cease to be divided."
The bloody Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania was the largest battle ever fought on American soil.
On November 19,1863, at a ceremony to establish Gettysburg as a national monument, Lincoln deliv­ered
what was to become one of the finest orations in American history, the Gettysburg Address. Yet just after he delivered it, there
was polite applause, and reactions varied from indifference to disappointment.
Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that ail men are created 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 battlefield of that war. We
have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation may iive. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above
our poor power to add or detract. The world will little 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 unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from
these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, 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 freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Courtesy of American Legion' Auxiliary, Archie McCord Unit #86, Joan Poppe