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Washington's Birthday

About This Item

  • Title: Washington's Birthday
  • Date: 22 February 1858
  • Creator(s): Walt Whitman
  • Whitman Archive ID: per.01320
  • Source: Brooklyn Daily Times, 22 February 1858: 2. Our transcription is based on a digital image of a microfilm scan of the original issue. Microfilm of original issue held at Pennsylvania State University Libraries. For a description of the editorial rationale behind our treatment of the journalism, see our statement of editorial policy.
  • Editorial note: This piece is unsigned, as was the case for most of Whitman's journalism. However, this editorial is part of a series of texts that deal with a coherent theme that has been identified by the Whitman Archive journalism team as likely authored by Whitman. This decision is based on a combination of historical and (auto)biographical accounts, similarity to contemporary Whitman writings, a history of scholarly attribution, extant clippings retained by Whitman, computational stylometric analysis, and, in some cases, manuscript evidence in Whitman’s hand.
  • Contributors to digital file: Kaylen Michaelis Cassandra Jannel Simms Stefan Schöberlein Karie Cobb
  • Cite this page: Whitman, Walt. "Washington's Birthday." The Walt Whitman Archive. Gen. ed. Matt Cohen, Ed Folsom, & Kenneth M. Price. Accessed 26 September 2024. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org>.
  • Source File: per.01320.xml (TEI)
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WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY.

To-day should be celebrated all over the nation with fitting observances, to mark the recognition on the part of the people of the important event it commemorates. It would be well for us in many respects if we had more holidays, and when an opportunity is afforded us of making one, it is strange that we should neglect it so utterly.

The name of Washington1 is constantly on our lips, his portrait hangs from every wall, and he is almost canonized in the affections of our people; but yet it appears (singular anomaly!) that we allow the day that presented him to the Western World to pass, with the most chilling indifference. This is not as it should be. We should not only keep his memory green in our hearts, but we should make an outward and visible sign of the grateful and reverent feelings that are really cherished by us. Many people who share in the utilitarian ideas that are possessed to such an extent by so large a class in our midst—who would measure everything by the rule of dollars and cents—affect to despise the celebration of the “glorious Fourth” and the like occasions, which are not so fully celebrated, as mere child’s-play—as school-boy’s holidays unworthy the regards of full-grown masculinity. How short-sighted! Let these days be as widely commemorated as possible—they keep alive by their annual recurrence the flickering flames of patriotism. Smile not, O! wrinkled man of business, at the militia processions, at the flaunting banners, at the exploding fire crackers, at the Buncombe speeches,2 almost as explosive. All these things, idle as you may think them, subserve a useful end and purpose. When a nation’s Holy-days are treated with indifference and neglect, it should be considered a sign of national degeneracy and decay.

Notes:

1. George Washington (1732–1799) was a military officer, a Founding Father, and the first president of the U.S. In a manner typical of the nineteenth century, he was a venerated historical figure in Whitman's household during his youth. Washington also appears prominently in a number of key Whitman poems. For more information, see William A. Pannapacker, "Washington, George (1732–1799)," Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia, ed. J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings (New York: Garland Publishing, 1998). [back]

2. Buncombe (more commonly spelled bunkum) refers to vapid, claptrap speech, often in a political context. [back]

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