Letter: Reading Hope Quay

Reading Hope Quay’s column is often a highlight of the day for me. The one about the dogs made me laugh as I hadn’t laughed in weeks! The column of Feb. 27, though, I found very interesting in a different way and it gave me much to contemplate. Perhaps I can offer a different perspective with regards to Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Now, I admit right here that I’m not on social media, so I may have missed much that is pertinent to the discussion.

What caused me concern was Quay’s assertion that there is no reason to like Columbus Day other than racism or fear of change. Now you may have heard it said that when someone calls you a racist they are out of arguments, and it’s usually true. Do you suppose there could be other reasons for supporting Columbus Day? 

Consider this: A distressing trend these days is to attack the reputation of dead American heroes. It’s part of a national decadence in which we disdain studying actual history and declare ourselves morally and intellectually superior to all previous generations. But, that is another whole topic for another time. We declare someone a racist, tear down his statues, scrub his name from public buildings, and check to see how many “Likes” we got online. It was awful when Stalin airbrushed his rivals out history, and it’s no accident that we’re urged to do the same awful thing now. (Google Trotsky airbrush, if you don’t know about this) Where will it end? Two thirds of the signers of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves, yet as they put their convictions down on parchment, they laid the groundwork by which the nation could mature within the bounds of the law and eventually make slavery and segregation illegal.

Washington, Jefferson, and Robert E. Lee had more honor, honesty, and decency in their little fingers than may be found in millions of us today. Lee was no more racist than you or I; at least he didn’t count his non-white friends on his fingers and smile smugly at his navel. To assume that we can read and judge hearts, and state that someone’s motives are contrary to his statements is a serious sin and we all need to stop it. When you call someone a racist, it can’t be “because I say you are” but rather because of something he actually said or did. (Voting for Trump is not enough)

Dumping Columbus Day gives me heartburn because it is part of a pattern of belittling and smearing nearly everything about the United States of America, starting with Columbus and going right up to me. Discussion is declared by the social justice mob to be over before it even begins. Just like the nightly news, our history is cherry-picked, twisted, and made into propaganda. It seems that nowhere in the world is there more hatred for the U.S.A. than in our colleges, universities, popular entertainment, media and schools. (Maybe not in Montana schools)

I know some history. I admit we had many problems and we always will.  But is ours an evil nation because some states allowed slavery? What will you do when someone points out the fact that slavery was rampant among indigenous peoples? Will you allow heroes that engaged in routine raids, abduction, rape, torture, murder, and mutilation? How about those Aztecs? Not only did they enslave their neighbors by the hundreds of thousands, but they combined human sacrifice and cannibalism on a grand scale. By what standard is that preferable to Christianity or the Constitution? If racism alone is to be our standard, should it not also apply to modern heroes like Margaret Sanger, who founded Planned Parenthood to prevent black babies (human weeds, she called them) from being born? But I digress.

Anyway, suppose we decide to read some history, since it’s possible that Hollywood could have left something out. We might find that Columbus was a leader, both on and off the court. He had courage, conviction, perseverance, and his actions were ordered to the glory of God. In a day when rum was a religion on some ships and in many ports, he took a priest on his voyages to celebrate the mass every day on the deck. He kept the prayer routine of a monk, rising to pray throughout the night and day. He did his best to improve the world in which he lived. None of our heroes are perfect, but to improve ourselves, we notice their good qualities for imitation.

Remember, E Pluribus Unum. Let’s have Indigenous Peoples Day at some other time, admitting that they had their faults but admiring their virtues. And let’s keep Columbus Day as a way of honoring all the good that has come, and will come, of this great nation and her wonderful peoples of all hues.

Glen Kronk

Canyon Creek