There's no news like old news. Doubt it? Just glance at this dramatic, multi-deck headline in the July 5, 1897, edition of the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi--the Arkansas Gazette:
THE EAGLE SCREAMS IN LITTLE ROCK
The celebration of the Glorious Fourth of July.
Rejoicing Over the Completion of Free Bridge.
Emancipation from Monopoly Rule in Little Rock.
MANY THOUSANDS ATTEND THE GREAT CELEBRATION
Magnificent Reception of the Multitude of Visitors by Citizens.
The City Beautifully and Elaborately Decorated for the Event.
The Nation's Birthday Appropriately and Elaborately Remembered by Everybody.
A MAGNIFICENT PARADE THAT WOULD DO HONOR TO ANY CITY IN THE LAND.
Emancipation from Monopoly Rule? It all sounds like the welcome that should be given any charter school opening in Arkansas today. The more things change, the more some things should be celebrated. In those olden days, speeches were published verbatim in the papers, a practice that should be revived somewhere besides in the pages of the Congressional Record. For a great speech can make great history. Like one that the irrepressible Teddy Roosevelt made in 1910, in which he explained that a good citizen doesn't just stand by and criticize politics, but takes an active part in it:
"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better," but the "man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes up short again and again" but "spends himself in a worthy cause."
Teddy Roosevelt's words still apply today--not just to national politics but the kind closest to home. Why not run for the city council or school board? Or even the Legislature if you can stand the company. See what it's like to take part in politics rather than forever grousing about others' performance in office.
Speak up, take a stand. And if you lose, so what? Some of us opposed Orval E. Faubus, this state's nigh-eternal governor back in the Furious Fifties and well into the Seggish Sixties, every time he ran for public office. He beat us like a drum election after election. Yet we still consider that record of unbroken losses not a mark of shame but a badge of honor. For losing in a worthy cause is far better than winning in an unworthy one.
Isn't that what being a good citizen is all about?
Follow your conscience wherever it leads. See you on the hustings, or at least in the letters-to-the-editor column.
Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer and columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Editorial on 07/24/2016