Jul 27, 2020 2 min read

Exception taken to Stout op-ed

Gary Stout’s July 21 commentary regarding monuments started off well enough.

I do agree that if civil authority put them up, civil authority can take them down.

I draw the line at willful destruction of any monument.

But is wasn’t long before we learned that the president and his supporters, like me, “see the world in simplistic terms and have no desire to gain a more in-depth understanding of America’s history.”

Really!

It gets worse and, even for Stout, much worse.

We really are the old deplorables: virtual simpletons, too stupid to know how stupid we really are, dragging our knuckles across the pavement, marching backward in lockstep to who knows where.

Perhaps I should have devoted more attention to my studies than reading the Observer Reporter{/em}.

One insult after another, and so it goes.

The most ironic feature of his diatribe is his characterization of flaws of four of our greatest presidents.

After all, we shouldn’t overgeneralize.

One in particular struck me. Washington was a slaveholder, and never a scholar or a brilliant general.

To that, I say, he warmed to abolitionism in his adult life, freed his slaves in his will, and provided for them after his death. He was highly regarded for his knowledge of mathematics, trigonometry, surveying and mapmaking, and writings on civility and etiquette.

And as for him not being a brilliant general, two casual observations: I don’t see a union jack flying on every flag pole in the neighborhood, and maybe we should consult Lord Cornwallis’ memoirs in regard to his military standing.

Steven R. Wolf

Washington{&end}