Thursday, September 12, 2019

“Don’t forget to sing in the lifeboats!” Kathryn & Ross Petras

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst
12 September
How did Lincoln face criticism? Part Two
Sometimes the criticisms Lincoln received were humorous - and humorous criticisms are particularly difficult to refute. If you were his friend 150-odd years ago, what advice would you give him on handling the following criticism [“Lincoln as flip-flopper!”] about the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation?
"Honest old Abe when the war first began
Denied abolition was part of his plan.
Honest old Abe has since made a decree
That the war must go on till the slaves are all free.
As both can't be honest will someone tell how
If honest Abe then he us honest Abe now?"

Or the front-page cartoon - not funny at all! – of a prestigious Northern newspaper toward the end of the Civil War depicting a bottomlessly sad woman representing the United States and a clownish scarecrow figure (think a witless ig-nor-ant Woody Woodpecker) representing Abraham Lincoln. The woman wails, "Where are my 500,000 sons?" And the Lincoln figure says, "I, er, why, that reminds me of a story!”

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