Symbolic : States Turn to the Unusual to Fill Their ‘Official Somethings’ List

The state Legislature recently designated the rare blue mineral benitoite as California’s official gemstone, putting it on a pedestal alongside such luminaries as the California dog-face butterfly (official insect), desert tortoise (official reptile) and saber-toothed tiger (official fossil).

Benitoite was more fortunate than needle grass, whose nomination as California’s official grass was killed last year after some lawmakers joked that marijuana would be a more appropriate choice.

A Fortuna, Calif., elementary school class’s attempt to change the state song from “I Love You California” to “California, Here I Come” also died after the Native Sons of the Golden West protested that the latter sounded like something that outsiders would sing.

California isn’t the only state to become caught up in debates over its pantheon of state somethings during the last few years.

Connecticut recently named Revolutionary War patriot Nathan Hale its official hero--but only after a pledge by his legislative supporters to consider naming an official heroine next year.

And a New York Assemblyman’s proposal to honor Sam (Uncle Sam) Wilson, a 19th-Century meatpacker, as official state patriot failed this year, but has been reintroduced.

Return of Traditional Values

Some recent state symbol bills seem to signal the return of old-fashioned patriotism. Some reflect current concerns over the environment. And others stem from more traditional influences, such as everyday politics, chauvinism and school kids in search of class projects.

Also, the often-lighthearted bills are a break from life’s harsher realities.

“I think these kinds of bills provide some light moments on days that are dull or worse,” said Massachusetts state Rep. Richard T. Moore, sponsor of the official state march, “The Road to Boston.”

“It’s the same reason newspapers carry human-interest stories.”

Moore, however, conceded that a colleague’s pending official-state-muffin bill “might be going to an extreme.”

Then, again, Massachusetts houses 25 other symbols, including four official rocks (three historic, one industrial). California is overshadowed with just 18.

Louisiana’s gallery of state symbols has been enlarged to include the Catahoula cur (official dog), the alligator (official reptile), and the crawfish (official crustacean).

Why the crawfish?

“Crawfish is the bravest animal there is,” Louisiana state Sen. Elwyn Nicholson said the other day. “You put a lobster on the railroad tracks, he just lies there and gets run over. Put a crawfish on the tracks, he raises up his hands to fight when the train comes at him.”

Shortages in Some Categories

With statehouses adopting more and more official symbols, shortages in some categories were inevitable. New York named the beaver its official animal despite protests from the Oregon Senate that that rodent was already spoken for. Milk is the official drink of Minnesota, Louisiana and Arkansas--although you won’t get any complaints from the dairy industry, which sponsored each bill.

The onslaught of state symbols would be even heavier except that occasionally a nominee is rejected.

The honeybee went down to defeat as the official insect of Missouri this year after a sarcastic legislator tacked on an amendment that would have made the mule the official animal. A measure to cite the tuba as Wisconsin’s official musical instrument was killed by Assembly members who termed it unworthy of their attention. The armadillo was rejected as official mammal in Texas on the grounds that it’s a might too homely.

And Rhode Islanders were deprived of an official cheese in a partisan conflict--Democrats were pro-ricotta, Republicans anti-ricotta.

Recalling the cheese fight, reporter Tom Morgan of the Providence Journal said: “It turned into a real Frankenstein Muenster. I still think we’d have an official cheese if only Sen. John Romano had gotten involved, but he refused.”

While benitoite, California’s state gemstone, recently went on exhibit in the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, state symbols often fade into obscurity after their initial splash of publicity.

Most People Forget

Neither the crawfish nor the alligator is on display in Louisiana’s Statehouse and Sen. Nicholson admits that “most people forgot about (the bills honoring them) right away . . . except one fellow who sent me a drawing. It showed a crawfish saying to an alligator, ‘Now that we’re organized, where do we go from here?’ ”

The fact that admission to the state honor roll may result in nothing more tangible than a mention in tourist brochures leads critics to contend that such bills are a waste of time.

After the California Senate refused to confirm an official grass, official dance (the square dance) or change the state song, John Hendricks, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) explained:

‘Search for Attention’

“We felt there were so many more important things to be done. We already have a surplus of state this and state thats. This type of bill is often a search for attention (by its sponsor).”

And he pointed out that the state Legislative Analyst’s office estimated the cost of introducing and processing an individual bill at more than $3,000.

In the older states, proposals to designate historic figures as state symbols have been on the increase since the nation’s Bicentennial, and especially since Ronald Reagan was elected President.

“I think there’s been a renewal of interest in our heritage,” Moore of Massachusetts said.

That state recently adopted an official heroine--Deborah Sampson, a young woman who fought in the Revolutionary War while disguised as a man and was wounded twice.

“The second time she was wounded, medics discovered she was a woman,” Moore said.

The second time?

“The first time she evidently took care (of the wound) herself,” he added.

No Official Hero

Oddly, Massachusetts still has no official hero, unlike Connecticut, which so honored Nathan Hale on the 230th anniversary of his birth in June.

Hale, a Connecticut schoolteacher hanged by the British for spying in 1776, is best remembered for his last words: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

The Hale bill, sponsored by Republicans, was delayed when Democrats held out for a state heroine--Prudence Crandall, also a teacher, who caused controversy in 1832 when she admitted a black girl to her all-white school. Republicans agreed to consider a heroine next year.

New York Assemblyman Michael McNulty, meanwhile, avoided the gender problem by proposing an official patriot. However, some colleagues questioned his choice--Sam Wilson, a meatpacker who supplied the U.S. Army during the War of 1812, stamping his shipments “U.S.” The soldiers, so the story goes, joked that “U.S.” stood for Uncle Sam, thereby giving birth to a symbol of the nation.

The bill died in the Senate but has been reintroduced.

Environmental Concerns

Often, state-symbol bills are also introduced as expressions of environmental concern, as was the case with Maryland’s official insect (the once-endangered Baltimore checkerspot butterfly).

The California gray whale was designated its state’s official marine mammal at the urging of Dana Hills High School as a protest over the hunting of the species.

Spirited Fights

Spirited fights over competing state-symbol candidates are not unusual. Endorsing the saber-toothed tiger for California state fossil, Alan Sieroty, then a Beverly Hills assemblyman, praised the one-time Wilshire-area resident “as a strong and majestic animal--symbolic of the grandeur of our state.”

However, Napa County Rockhounds Inc., backing the beetle-like trilobite, quoted an archeologist who opined that the tiger was a clumsy, dim-witted vulture who preyed on “animals trapped in the sticky (La Brea Tar Pits)”--and more often than not wound up getting trapped itself.

The 35,000-year-old saber-tooth still won, although it had less seniority than the 250-million-year-old trilobite.

School kids may be the nation’s most active lobbyists for state symbols. Teachers (and some legislators) say the bills provide valuable civics lessons.

Learning that Colorado was the site of a major find of a stegosaurus fossil, a Denver-area elementary school induced a legislator to sponsor the spiked-tailed dinosaur for official fossil.

Republicans voted down the stegosaurus, but Democratic Gov. Richard D. Lamm resurrected it as official fossil through an executive order, thus ensuring that its scaly face would appear on state Department of Highway maps.

The issue had drawn statewide attention through the efforts of the children, who donned stegosaurus T-shirts and lobbied heavily for the bill, treating legislators to stegosaurus-shaped cookies and a free lunch at their school.

“We’ve been wined and dined before, but we’ve never been milked and cookied,” Rep. Bob Martinez said afterward.