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| The crowd gathers at Gettysburg |
Abraham
Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address, dedicating our country’s first
national cemetery, 150 years ago on November 19, 1863.
It wasn't an easy afternoon. The day was cold and dreary, and Lincoln was ill. Unbeknownst to him he was suffering from
smallpox, but he sat and waited, along with the rest of the 15,000 people gathered.
Senator Edward Everett spoke
first, rambling on for over two hours. Long winded to say the least, he finally sat down, and Lincoln rose and spoke his memorable words.
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| Senator Edward Everett |
The entire Gettysburg Address was only two minutes long--so quick that many in the audience missed
the beauty of its brevity. Others didn't get it at all, like The Patriot and Union
paper out of Harrisburg thirty-five miles away. The editor called
the president’s words “silly remarks” and readily dismissed it.
That was 150
years ago, and I guess that negative editorial, which ran against the grain of
all the other news at the time, had been bothering the folks in
Harrisburg ever since.
A few days
ago The Patriot and Union, with
tongue in cheek, retracted their long ago opinion, and in the style of the
Gettysburg Address printed this:
“Seven score
and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to
its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the
perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our
archives.”
Within a
day, the reaction to their retraction stunned the editors involved. Every major news outlet carried the story, and thousands of
comments and questions flooded into their offices, many begging for interviews. Even SNL included a special presentation during their “Weekend
News.
And after all these years...
I bet old Abe is smiling from
his grave.
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