The Pledge_ A History of the Pledge of Allegiance - Jeffrey Owen Jones [28]
And many of the legislators drew a quick line between the enlightenment that Columbus represented and the role of public schools in the celebration. “There is a direct line of connection between the determination of Columbus to break through the limitations of the Middle Ages and the educational system which represents the modern spirit of enlightenment,” said Durborow. Even Congressman Joseph Bailey (D.-Tex.), who announced that he was “uncompromisingly opposed to the appropriation of a single dollar more for that Exposition” and was “hostile to this sort of thing from first to last,” was very much in favor of the Public School Celebration. “It not only asks for no money from the Government, but most of all, and best of all, it centers itself in the hearts of the people. . . . It depends entirely upon the people of each locality, and in that respect it represents the American idea. . . . It will be an object lesson in the responsibilities of citizenship.”
There was no doubt, at least among the several dozen or so congressmen that Bellamy interviewed, that education was an important subject. “When the children begin to take an interest in historical matters the rest of the world has to follow,” said Congressman Sherman Hoar (D.-Mass.). “Children can make anything in the world interesting, and significant as well.” “Our perpetuity as a Nation depends upon the education of all the citizens,” exclaimed Mr. Bailey of Texas. “That is the one line where individual liberty must give way to the general good. No man has a right to demand that his children shall grow up ignorant. No man who has property has the right to deny the advantages of education to the children of the man who has no property.” Congressman Roger Mills (D.-Tex.), seemed to make a similar exception to the preeminence of individual, or states’, rights when it came to education. “The Public School cannot be exalted too much,” he told Bellamy. “You must remember it is a state institution and not a national one.” That notwithstanding, Mills continued, “A mass of ignorant citizens is always a menace to justice and liberty. Therefore we must take the public money, and compel these children to be educated.”
“Our public school system is what makes this Nation superior to all other Nations—not the Army or Navy system,” said Hoar. “Military display . . . does not belong here.” In fact, a number of the congressmen expressed their desire to keep the military, except for the Grand Army, a group of Civil War veterans from the North, out of this. “I have no patience with all this Naval Display and Military Display for Columbus Day,” intoned Congressman William Campbell Preston Breckinridge (D.-Ky.), a former colonel in the Confederate Army. “What place has it in that day? We have had war enough. The genius of the country isn’t arms and military display. . . . [W]e are made for different things. Our progress lies in the direction of enlightenment, and that is what the Public School stands for. The Children ought to be made to feel on that day that enlightenment and not the showiness of uniforms, and the perfection of machines for killing men, is the real destiny of this land of ours. They can’t learn that too early either.”
An interesting exception to the general roll of interviewees was Theodore Roosevelt, then serving as president of the U.S. Civil Service Commission. Bellamy clearly recognized the political clout that the young Harrison appointee from New York had. And Roosevelt didn’t disappoint:
Yes, I believe in the Celebration of Columbus Day, by the Public Schools of America, from the word “go.” The public School is the keystone of the arch of our civilization. It stands for the American principle of equality. It is a great thing to give to the average man the principles of progress and enlightenment. Other nations have given these