News Anchors on Gettysburg
by Jenkin Lloyd Jones, L.A. Times Syndicate
Davis Dart Vol. 52 Number 2; Monday, September 24, 1973 page 2
(Dart Editor’s note: The following article was printed in the Deseret News, September 4, 1973. Because of its unusual content, we wish to reprint it for you.)
“…and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Everett Eyebrow in Washington and the Blue network has just brought you live the speech of President Lincoln at the dedication of the Gettysburg Military Cemetery. To analyze the President’s remarks I have in the studio my colleagues, Samuel Stiletto and Dirk Smirk. On the split screen you can see the President getting into his carriage and the – well, I thought – rather disappointed listeners dispersing. But that’s just one man’s opinion and I’d like to hear from Sam.”
“You’ll have to make that two men’s opinion, Ev. You heard the small smattering of applause and I think the television audience was probably as surprised as the Gettysburg crowd that the speech was over almost as it began.”
“Dirk?”
“That’s the big point, Sam. Here’s the country in an awful mess after two bloody years. People are looking for a way out. They are rioting against the draft in New York City and a lot of disgusted soldiers are going over the hill and heading West. Just what did the President give the people this afternoon, Ev?”
“You can’t say that he didn’t give them a few fancy phrases, Dirk. Like ‘unfinished work so far nobly advanced’ and ‘great task remaining before us’ and ‘last full measure of devotion’. But what meaningful and relevant guidelines did he give us for either winning this war or ending it? Yes, Sam.”
“I thought it ironic and more than a little impertinent that Mr. Lincoln should come to Gettysburg with vague generalities. There were no vague generalities about what happened here. More than 23,000 of our lads were killed or wounded and here is Gen. Lee back in Virginia with his army intact. I’d say we’re just about where we were two years ago. How about it, Dirk?”
"That's probably why this speech was so short, Sam. Let's be fair to the President, if you'd made as much of a fiasco at of this war as he has what could you do but make a short speech? We get a new commanding general of every couple of months and he takes a new army across the Potomac and loses it. What can Mr. Lincoln really say to the people, Ev?"
"I suppose he could say 'Keep on dying,' Dirk, but neither he nor anyone else would want to put it so bluntly. So he says it is for us, the living, to be dedicated, that we must take increased devotion, that we must highly resolve. All this adds up, of course, to more of the same. I wouldn't want to put any words in the President's mouth but it seems to me that what he really implied this afternoon was, 'Hang on, and maybe I'll think of something.' Your turn, Sam. "
"Well, I think, again, that we've got to be very fair to the President. I maintain he was not entirely responsible for the war. He was a country lawyer, a circuit-riding joke-teller and one-term congressman who was hurled by a series of accidents into the pinnacle of power at a time when a cool head and skillful hands were desperately needed. I think he has tried, but one more performance like this afternoon could finish him. What about you, Ev?"
"I'm sorry our time is up because I think Sam really put his finger on it. But, in line with giving the president his due, there was one part of his speech to which no one will object – that line where he admitted that the world will little note nor long remember what he said. "
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