Good morning, its Friday, May 28, 2021, the day of the week when I reprise quotations intended to be uplifting or educational. Todays concerns Memorial.
Good morning, it’s Wednesday, May 26, 2021. On this date in 1864, in the brief and fraught respite between the gruesome battles at Spotsylvania Courthouse and Cold Harbor, Abraham Lincoln signed a proclamation making Montana a U.S. territory. Statehood would come 25 years earlier.
In the ensuing decades, Montana has stamped itself as a special place in our national consciousness, celebrated in songs, novels, and movies as “the last best place,” a Lincoln-esque description coined in 1983 by naturalist Douglas H. Chadwick.
I’ve been to Montana many times, fished its rivers and streams, patronized its saloons, hiked its mountains, broke bread in that state with old friends and new. But I loved the place before I ever set foot in it, mainly because of its writers.
Good morning, it’s Monday, May 24, 2021. On this date in 1844, Samuel Morse sent the first public message via telegraph. It went over the newly installed wire on Capitol Hill to his collaborator, Alfred Vail, who was awaiting the signal at a Baltimore railroad station. The words Morse typed out in the code that bears his name came from the Bible:
“What hath God wrought?”
It was a fitting message, as much in our time as it was then. I’ll have a brief additional observation about this technological milestone in a moment. First I’d point you to our front page, which aggregates, as it does each day, an array of columns and stories spanning the political spectrum. We also offer a complement of original material from RCP reporters and contributors, including the following:
Good morning, its Thursday, May 20, 2021. The carnage in Gaza and Israel continues, the push for a Jan. 6 commission is roiling Congress, and COVIDs grip.
Good morning, it’s Friday, May 14, 2021, the day of the week when I reprise quotations intended to be uplifting or educational. Today’s, as promised, comes from Abraham Lincoln but during the Mexican-American War. Rarely discussed in American politics today, that conflict was a momentous event in the evolution of the two countries.
It cost Mexico the potential wealth of California and most of what we know as the American Southwest, as well as much prestige and self-confidence not to mention the lives of thousands of soldiers and civilians. On the other side of the border, the United States gained vast new lands, a sense of its own power, and a new generation of battle-tested veterans, including two future presidents, Franklin Pierce and Zachary Taylor.