Front Royal Elks Lodge produces facts and thoughts of Independence Day

While I’m not a member, Front Royal Elks Lodge 2382 secretary Jane Wine thoughtfully keeps me on the mailing list, and we at the Royal Examiner are pleased to publish Elks news of general interest which I now propose to do on the eve of Independence Day 2019.

Specifically, it is the Independence Day message by Exalted Ruler Dennis Henline that I will liberally quote from since it brings to mind parts of a conversation I had recently with a future candidate for town council, Stephen Wayne Showers. Steve and I don’t agree on much, but we did come together on Ronald Reagan being the best and most productive president of recent times. I worked for him, so I should know, right?!

Actually, Henline swiped the biggest part of his message from the “Legion Magazine” authored by a man identified as Alan W. Dowd, so I’ll go ahead and swipe from Dennis what he swiped from Alan.

The article Henline referred to was titled “Is America still the land of the free?” He prefaced the introduction to Dowd’s article by writing that “we, as Americans, can be proud that we won our independence thanks to those brave men and women who stood against all odds to gain freedom.”

Thomas Jefferson made this observation in 1788, when America’s experiment in individual liberty and limited government was new: “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government gain ground.”

Dowd allowed as how America “has changed in many ways since Jefferson warned about the fragility of freedom and relentlessness of government – some for the better, some for the worse.”

He went on: “This is where the Pilgrims fled to find religious and political freedom, where our founders drafted charters of government declaring our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…

“According to a number of measurements of freedom, however, the United States is not exactly the land of the free. The decline is largely a function of government expansion… (President Ronald) Reagan wasn’t saying there was no need for government. (He was saying) Government is essential to protect life and property, to carry out justice, to maintain law and order, to deter and defeat enemies abroad, all so individuals might engage in what Jefferson called ‘the pursuit of happiness’.

“Reagan understood that government and private enterprise compliment each other and must continue to coexist and cooperate. But he knew that too much government makes the pursuit of happiness… much more difficult. Just as freedom without a foundation of law and order devolves into anarchy, laws and orders fashioned without regard for the Constitution’s foundational promise to ‘secure the blessing of liberty’ have the effect of undermining it.”

As you gather on the Fourth of July at picnics and fireworks and all, think about it! Is America still “the land of the free?”

The Elks newsletter also offers a few “fascinating facts” about America’s holiday:

• Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4 – John Hancock and Charles Thomson (Secretary of Congress). Most of the others signed on August 2.
• Three U.S. presidents have died on July 4: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. Adams and Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the country they helped found.
• The Fourth of July wasn’t deemed a federal holiday until 1870, nearly 100 years after the nation was founded.

Enjoy!

(Malcolm Barr Sr, our contributing writer, is an immigrant from England, a lifelong journalist, and was press secretary for U.S. Sen.Hiram L. Fong (R-Hawaii) in the 1970s and worked for the Reagan Administration in the 1980s).