America’s Monumental Mistake

America’s Monumental Mistake

In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt established America’s first national monument, The Devils Tower Located in Wyoming. National monuments are not to be confused with statues, or monuments erected by townships, or governments other than the government of the United States. National monuments are usually designated by presidents, but congress is empowered to create or designate them as well, Fort McHenry in Maryland being an excellent example. When one considers the subject of monuments, it soon begs the question, why do we designate, or erect monuments. The answer is simple.

Were America to go forward, tearing down its objective landmarks, nothing of the past would remain, and America would simply reinvent itself every time a strip mall or a fast food restaurant were to become more profitable than a historic landmark. After all, the number one law of real estate is, location, location, location, right? Before another word is written we must examine the difference between monuments that exist due to nature, or to the exigencies experienced by those humans involved in making history, such as Fort McHenry, and those designed and erected to commemorate a historical event.

The difference, of course, is null. I simply refuse to argue that there is any difference in a statue of Robert E. Lee, and Mount Rushmore. Except of course that a bronze statue of Lee is something like a lost bookend compared with the obvious awesome production of Rushmore. But consider this, The song “I Gotcha!” By Joe Tex is like tuneless whistling next to, say, “Freebird”; but they are both songs, and therefore should be considered as having something deeply obvious in common. If we were debating which songs to delete from history based on their merits, Freebird would prevail; but why would we have such a debate? Because “I Gotcha!” sounds like a rap tune could it be said that only music that appeals to the “higher tastes” should be allowed a place in music history? Horse hockey!  Both songs exist because they give meaning to an emotion in a listener, and therefore they are QED. I believe that is important to remember.

You don’t see Jews tearing down what is left of Auschwitz, or Treblinka in Germany do you? Of course not. Those are reminders of what happened, left in place in the hopes that such a thing may never happen again. But somehow, the confederate monuments of the south escape this explanation.

One good reason that confederate monuments were erected ex post facto is the there wasn’t anything left to preserve in the south once the union kicked Johnnie Reb”s ass all the way back home. Most everything had been destroyed and burned once the remnants of the southern army literally limped back to what had been their homes. Another reason had to do with reconstruction law, and lastly, the south was practically too poor to feed itself, much less erect statues. The simple fact is, that a couple of months ago a black child might well have looked at a monument to Jefferson Davis, and been able to ask its father, “who is that man?” And the answer would have led to many questions some asked, some unasked that would have led that child to become an adult that understood its heritage far better than today. It’s too bad that, like the union of reconstruction, we must allow this ideological division between north and south to continue.

We continue to display our utter lack of leadership, and to pass on the message that we may as well not try to find answers to our problems because we don’t possess the capacity to find answers to our problems. One thing’s for sure though, it’ll take a lot more than a rope and a pickup truck to pull down “The Devil’s Tower”.

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