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“A Republic if You Can Keep It”
The above quip is one of Benjamin Franklin’s most popular remarks from the Founding Fathers era. But the question is, for how long? A District of Columbia panel has identified Franklin, among other Founders, as a “person of concern,” and recommended his name be removed from D.C. property, reports Inez Stepman at the Federalist.
While the District of Columbia deals with unruly mobs roaming the city and screaming at diners and residents walking their dogs, DC Mayor Muriel Bower has a top priority. And that priority does not include dealing with DC’s skyrocketing crime rate.
What most concerns Mayor Bowser is the “offensiveness of the Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial and other honorifics given to American heroes.”
The astonishing proposals come from a Washington, D.C., government committee formed by Mayor Muriel Bowser to re-examine the names of schools, statues and parks in the wake of protests. The committee submitted its report Monday, and Ms. Bowser tweeted “I look forward to reviewing and advancing their recommendations.”
The committee reported that it was hunting for historical figures with “key disqualifying histories, including participation in slavery, systemic racism, mistreatment of, or actions that suppressed equality for, persons of color, women and LGBTQ communities and violation of the DC Human Right Act.”
The bureaucrats worked with uncharacteristic dispatch, reports the editorial board of the WSJ, “taking six weeks to render the judgment of history on 1,330 properties named for people.”
Some other school names the committee wants scrubbed: Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence that declared all men are created equal; Francis Scott Key, author of the Star-Spangled Banner; Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone; and James Monroe, who negotiated the Louisiana Purchase and was America’s fifth President.
The District of Columbia is ultimately governed by Congress, Representative Chip Roy (R, TX 21) recently reminded the Mayor Bowser. Rep. Roy threatened to advance legislation stripping the mayor’s powers.
And as Ms. Stepman notes, this is another good reminder that “the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing when they decided that the seat of the nation’s capital should NOT be a state.”
