President’s Day is a little bit puzzling to me, but it didn’t used to be.
When I was in elementary school and until 1971, we celebrated the holiday with two days off from school, one for President Washington and one for President Lincoln.
Every school child knew that President Abraham Lincoln was born on Feb. 12th, and everyone of us knew by heart that President George Washington’s birthday was Feb. 22nd.
No national holiday existed yet.
Originally called Washington’s Birthday, Feb. 22nd was a day set aside in 1885 by President Chester Arthur as a day to honor the “father of our country.”
Since 1968, however, I cannot get Presidents Day straight in my mind because in that year Congress passed the Monday Holidays Act.
Everyone was supposed to celebrate Presidents Day the third Monday in February to honor two of our greatest presidents of the United States, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, on the same day.
I remember that teachers, students and the general public were perplexed about the change in 1968, but, as it turned out, we weren’t the only ones.
On Capital Hill, lawmakers found a surprising glitch in its Monday Holidays Act. Congress learned after the fact that there was a federal statute already on the books designating the third Monday as Washington’s Birthday.
Did that leave Lincoln out?
No one seemed to know, but some legislators fought to include Lincoln in the official name. The resolution was defeated and, contrary to popular belief, I learned that the name of the federal holiday has never been officially changed, and remains on the books designated as Washington’s Birthday.
After a few years of uncertainty, President Richard Nixon issued a proclamation in 1971 stating that the third Monday of February would honor all past presidents of the United States.
This was supposed to clear things up since most people had no idea whether to continue celebrating Feb. 12 and 22 separately or together. Some schools observed both days during this period of time, but many, as I recall, no longer gave students two days off, only one.
There was another glitch in this situation that added even more confusion.
The news media or the government or someone began to tell us that the new presidential proclamation, although important and weighty, was not the same as an executive order.
If I remember correctly, banks did not close at first on the new Presidents Day, and the post office delivered mail because states were not required to adopt the federal holiday, since Presidents Day really wasn’t a federal holiday.
It may sound impossible to believe these days, but no one split hairs much back then, and in time, Presidents Day observances around the country complied without much fuss with the Monday Holiday Act.
Although Nixon’s proclamation indicated we should celebrate all past presidents’ birthdays, it is safe to say there weren’t many festivities centered around the birthdays of Grover Cleveland or William Henry Harrison, for instance.
I am happy to tell you that recently I found some children’s Crayola coloring pages much like we used when I was a child. Both Washington and Lincoln are depicted together with a big birthday cake and lots of candles on one page, and other pages feature them separately.
And printed in large type are the familiar words: Happy Birthday, Presidents Washington and Lincoln.
Nice to know some things never change.
