My new favorite President - Books by Eric Douglas

A couple weeks ago, I was contacted by the people of CCTV-America. They wanted me to come to Washington DC to talk about the lobster divers in Honduras. The network (Central China Television) broadcasts all over the world and they have a new, English-language show called Americas Now. (More on this in the next day or so.)

I decided to take an extra day in DC and see some of the city and since my fiancée hadn’t been to DC since her 6^th grade trip, she went along for the ride. I love DC. It would literally take weeks to see everything. I had a day and a half.

One thing I wanted to do was to visit the war memorials. I thought I could use the pictures to supplement my Voices of War veteran’s history project. The unseasonably warm weather also had the Japanese Cherry Blossoms in bloom early. We were there just a couple days before the peak and it was beautiful. The trees looked like they were covered in white and pink snow.

One of the best places to see the trees in bloom is around the Washington Tidal Basin that leads to Jefferson Memorial. We took off walking, smelling the blossoms and enjoying being beside the water. The trees are truly a marvel. This is the centennial of the first successful shipment of trees. The city of Tokyo donated them to Washington. The first shipment came in 1910, but had to be destroyed as they were infested with insects.

As we walked around the tidal basin, we came across the monument to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In several trips to DC, I had never seen it. There are “rooms” dedicated to each term the man served in office. It is also the only one that honors a first lady, with a larger-than-life statue of Eleanor beside the UN crest, recognizing her as the first ambassador to the UN. FDR’s presidency during the Great Depression is depicted through statues of men standing in bread lines and listening to his “fireside” chats on the radio. The walls of the rooms during World War II are some of the most stirring, though. They are adorned with some of his quotes. These are some of my favorites.

“I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust.”

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much;
It is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

“We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all citizens, whatever their background.
We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.”

“I have seen war… I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded…
I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed…
I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.”

“We have faith that future generations will know that here,
in the middle of the twentieth century there came a time when men of good will found a way to unite,
and produce, and fight to destroy the forces of ignorance, and intolerance and slavery and war.”

“More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.”

“Unless the peace that follows recognizes that the whole world is one neighborhood and does justice to the whole human race, the germs of another world war will remain as a constant threat to mankind.”

As I walked along, I kept thinking to myself that no one speaks like that anymore. I’m sure people will disagree with me, often along party lines. I just don’t feel inspired by anyone. And definitely not moved as much as I was by lines carved in granite spoken by a man who died almost exactly 67 years ago (April 12, 1945).