Studying history

For some, studying history - as opposed to simply believing what you are told (or worse, believe what you want to believe about an historical figure or event) - is a living art.  The events or people alter with new information and discoveries.

That is one reason I've always loved history.

But some want to just have the Cliff Notes version of history.  For example - see the letter to the editor below.

Here's the "Letter to the Editor" in yesterday's Times:

"The column written by Eric Bergeson and published by the Thief River Falls Times on Feb. 23, 2011, confirms my reason for not wasting very much time reading newspapers anymore. The column was not only disgusting in and by itself, it really makes me wonder how our education system has gone so far astray as to even teach garbage like that. Now granted, I went to school int he late 1930s and 1940s where my first eight grades were all taught in the same room. In those classes, I heard of the greatness of President Abraham Lincoln by listening to upper classmates recite speeches in front of the room. Back in those days, we honored President George Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays separately. Late on, they put them together and called it President's Day.




It is impossible for me to comprehend why the liberal mind is so hell-bent on destroying everything that is good. There have been many good principles passed down from our founding fathers. It seems, however, that anybody who has a different point of view from that of the liberals must be destroyed. Rules don't matter, law doesn't mater...the Constitution doesn't matter, the will of the people doesn't matter. Now tell me why you don't try to expose President Barack Obama with the same fervor that you used on Lincoln? Obama is clearly the least qualified of any man in any room he enters. Not only that, according to the Constitution, he is not legally qualified to be president. The Constitution clearly states that no person except a natural born citizen shall be eligible to the office of president -- Article II Section 1. His father was never a United States citizen.




Now, as for Lincoln: what difference does his personal life have to do with the way he governed? It didn't seem to make any difference to you liberals when President Bill Clinton was having sex with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. That was his personal life. Lincoln was president in one of the most difficult times in the history of our great nation. The Gettysburg address has gone down in history as one of hte greatest speeches any president has ever given, and he didn't even use a teleprompter. I read your article Mr. Bergeson, and it made me angry. As yet, I have not figured out the point you tried to make by defaming such a great president.




Maynard Wedul, Lake City, Minn. (formerly of Thief River Falls)

Just to be fair (something Wedul neglects) let's put his letter to the editor in context.

He is writing his letter in response to this Down on the Farm column on President Lincoln penned by Eric Bergerson.

Here is Bergerson's column -

A most unusual president

Sun, 02/20/2011 - 11:34am

Last Monday, we celebrated President's Day. It caused me to reflect upon some of the characters we've elected to lead us over the years. 

One character in particular was really over-the-top. 

An enthusiastic fist-fighter, he took on all comers in bare-knuckles boxing matches, many of them staged by notorious gamblers. He won every match, sometimes defeating two opponents at a time.

His professional renown arose from his abilities as a bare-knuckled lawyer who could get cold-blooded murderers off scot-free, either on a technicality, or by asking the jury, "Well, he done it, but wouldn't you have done it, too?"

A non-churchgoing agnostic, he once ran against a preacher for political office. As a campaign gimmick, he attended one of the preacher's services and sat near the front.

The preacher, sensing an opening, addressed his opponent during the sermon with the question: "Sir, do you plan to go to heaven?"

The man responded, "No sir, but I do plan to go to Congress."

While in the state legislature, a bill came up which required a yes or no vote. He wanted to vote neither way, as both options would hurt him in the upcoming election. But voting "present" wasn't an option. And the doors were locked.

So, he crawled out a window in the House chambers. 

He didn't drink, but not out of conviction. He knew that alcohol would only exacerbate his considerable mental health problems. He avoided the bottle with iron-clad discipline, knowing he would gain a leg up on his more bibulous political opponents. 

Often suicidal, friends took turns watching him through the night during his down moods to make sure he didn't hurt himself. 

His marriage was a mess, and the mess sometimes spilled into public view. 

Once, he showed up at work wearing a large bandage. His loony wife had clunked him over the head with chunk of firewood before breakfast. 

While reviewing 15,000 troops in solemn silence, his wife rode up in a carriage and loudly accused him of having an affair with the wife of a general standing nearby. 

Without embarrassment, he let her carry on until her venom was spent and casually resumed the reviewal without explanation. 

His wife loved to shop. Washington wasn't good enough for her, so she shopped in New York, running up bills which ran into the thousands of dollars.

Her husband let her shop and paid the bills with only a mumble of complaint, even though her shopping used up most of their fortune by the end of his tenure in office. 

His peccadilloes were the subject of gossip amongst the socialites in Washington, but the press of the time never broke the story. Perhaps they didn't know how.

He told dirty jokes at the most inappropriate times, jokes so crude they would curl the hair of people even today. 

He laughed his squeaky laugh at the wrong times, sometimes when surrounded by tragedy. 

He was at times so hated by members of his own political party that they nicknamed him "the Baboon." Indeed, he was ugly enough that the nickname sort of fit. 

He was regarded as a social outcast, a hick with a thin, high-pitched voice who was prone to talking like a backwoods farmer when the situation seemed to require more finesse. 

Although he relished the role of hick, if you put a pen in his hand he could write like no other president we have ever elected. 

However, his elegant writing was usually designed to conceal more of his beliefs and intentions than it revealed.

Every speech he gave, every proclamation he issued was scoured by his allies and opponents for lawyerly loopholes. They were everywhere, and he didn't hesitate to crawl through them when the situation changed. 

Knowing how loath the press was to in-depth research, he became a master at issuing grand, sensational proclamations which contained fine print down the page that canceled out what the document seemed to say up top. 

Despite it all, he was a genius, a towering intellect, a sensitive leader and a masterful grand strategist, the greatest but most complicated president we have ever elected. 

His name was Abraham Lincoln, and in this day and age he would be laughed out of the presidential race long before the first primary. 

I was intrigued enough by this article that I sought out the definitive biography on Lincoln, penned by Carl Sandberg, which also earned him the Pulitzer.  I want to know more about Lincoln because of such peculiarities.  I don't see them as flaws in his character.  Rather I simply see them as humanizing Lincoln.  What is so wrong with that?

In fact, the stories behind the men and women in history are exactly what began to interest me in history in the first place.  That is also one thing that motivated me to earn a minor in history and to participate in graduate courses in history via the MNHS and Hamline.

I wanted to know more.  And the more I found out, the more I wanted to learn.  I suppose I could have stopped with the series of biographies that I read in Mr. Mueller's sixth grade class (among my favorites were George Washington, Harry Houdini, Ben Franklin, and Henry Ford) and just let the legends of American history live on as textbooks wanted them to be remembered.  But I didn't.  I wanted to know more.


Did I lose any admiration for the "Lincoln" of my generation (and by that I mean the one president that was continually admired and praised throughout my education), JFK, when I learned that he was probably quite high (via the medication he was taking for his back and other maladies) for stretches of his administration? Of course not!  And that's not to mention his relationship with Marilyn Monroe!   Every one faces their inner demons.  Presidents not excluded.


Did I lose any admiration for my father's favorite president, Ronald Reagan, when I learned that he had been suffering senility from Alzheimer's while in the final stages of his last term?  No.  It did not.  In fact, when I read his letters to his wife, I admired Reagan all the more.  When I learned that he once recounted an incredible war story as fact - when in fact it was the plot of a movie and never ever happened - did I admire him less?  No.  Everyone has moments like that.


The point is, I enjoyed learning more about these figures.


Knowing more certainly doesn't mean destroying anything.  At least in America.  Perhaps Wedul would be happier in China or the former Soviet Union where knowing more was not good for your health.  Where you can have your heroes handpicked and crafted by the state for you.


I guess too one could desire to not know any more when you think you already know it all.  But there is plenty of danger in that.  And history has proven that again and again and again.  Should you actually choose to study and read about it and not just rely on speeches recited by elder school mates or fondly remembering history just as you wish it really happened or even inventing history as it happens right now.  But you'd have to actually study and read and learn for that to happen.