Bicentennial Celebration : Hoopla, Serious Study Put Focus on U.S. Constitution

When the city fathers of tiny Madison, Minn., decided to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution and the preeminent role played by their namesake, Founding Father James Madison of Virginia, they immediately thought of Lou T. Fisk.

What could be more appropriate, they decided, than to send him on a tour of some of the 26 other American cities named for the quiet scholarly man once described as no bigger “than half a piece of soap” and now recognized as the single most influential force in shaping the Constitution?

“Lou T. Fisk,” the community mascot, is a 24-foot long fiber glass codfish named for “lutefisk,” an item of food prepared by drying codfish and treating it with lye. Lutefisk was once a staple in the diets of the Norwegians and other Scandinavian immigrants who settled much of Minnesota.

Loaded aboard a trailer and hauled east, Lou T. Fisk got stopped for traveling without a light on his tail fin, almost collided with a bus, and was the butt of countless truckers’ jokes before he ended up in New York City--at Madison Square Park--where town representatives distributed copies of the Constitution along with samples of lutefisk.

Madison City Administrator Stephen Townley and his colleagues are not alone in deciding that too much solemnity should be avoided in marking the 200th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution. In Philadelphia, where the Constitution was crafted and signed, celebration plans include a bicycle race called the “Constitutional.” A soap box is being set up at Independence Mall for oratorically minded citizens. And a musical play called “The Four Little Pages” is being staged.

Across the country in Montebello, Calif., people are planning a “Bill of Rights Walk.”

All of which should be just fine with Warren E. Burger, who retired as chief justice of the United States to chair the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. As Burger and others acknowledge, the greatest challenge is getting the public interested in what historian James MacGregor Burns calls “a very boring document.”

‘Runs Out of Pizazz’

“It’s really not very exciting,” agrees Forrest McDonald of the University of Alabama, who has written nine books on the Constitution. “After the preamble, it runs out of pizazz.”

Burger himself, who describes the Constitution as “a piece of paper you can read in 15 minutes,” concedes there is a “disturbing lack of understanding about the Constitution among the public,” which he says tends to confuse it with the Bill of Rights--among other things.

Compounding the problems of public apathy and confusion, those directly involved in the various commemorative events being planned across the country have had trouble keeping things on track.

Madison, Minn., population 2,212 in the 1980 census, raised $5,000 for the Lou T. Fisk good-will trip--including traveling insurance for Lou--but many other communities have not done nearly that well.

Funds Are Sparse

Most states have named bicentennial commissions, for example, but many never appropriated funds. Even in Philadelphia, where extensive festivities are planned, organizers have raised less money than they had hoped.

There has also been a tendency for the best-laid plans to go awry. Initial plans called for all 535 members of Congress to meet in Philadelphia in mid-July, but logistics and costs have made that prohibitive. The current plan calls for a modest event attended by a 55-member congressional delegation to symbolize the 55 original convention delegates who met in Philadelphia.

In California, state bicentennial officials recently drew up plans for an evening fund-raiser at Disneyland. They even persuaded the Army to provide an airplane for Burger, which Burger’s staff had said would be needed in order for him to consent to the trip. But Burger decided at the last minute not to have a bicentennial commission meeting in California anyway and the event had to be canceled.

“We were furious,” said one person involved in the event who requested anonymity. “Burger sees this as a big civics lesson, but he has to understand that to be a success at the grass roots, there has to be some magic in it,” he said.

Slow to Gather

In point of fact, events did not run all that smoothly 200 years ago either, when the convention that would produce the Constitution got under way in May of 1787. According to Catherine Drinker Bowen in her book “Miracle at Philadelphia,” on the opening day of the convention, May 14, there were delegates present from only two states, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Rain-soaked roads and long distances had made travel difficult, and it was not until May 25 that the convention got the necessary quorum of seven states.

Rhode Island refused to participate at all, and it was not until late July that the final delegates from the 12th state--New Hampshire--were there.

In 1787, the Continental Congress also complained about losing its members to the Philadelphia convention. Money was another issue. There were no funds to pay for a chaplain. And many delegates from distant states, staying in boarding houses, ran up such debts that they had to appeal to their states for additional expense money.

Proceedings in Secrecy

The 55 delegates found the bustling city of Philadelphia to be hot and humid. Many wore tight-fitting clothes and wigs. They met in secrecy, with the windows of Independence Hall shut tight and the cobblestone streets outside covered with dirt to muffle the sounds of passing carriages.

But after four months of intense debate that sent some delegates home in disgust, 39 men finally signed their names to the final document that shaped this nation’s government and has become the world’s oldest living constitution.

“I sense a genuine appetite for learning about the Constitution,” said A. E. Dick Howard, professor of constitutional law at the University of Virginia. “It’s one of those subjects of which people may know very little, but they attach an instinctive importance.”

Howard has been involved in planning a major symposium on the Constitution this month that will bring together some 90 experts. “I urge people to read the Constitution,” he said. “It may not be wildly exciting, but it is short.”

Document Appears Everywhere

Indeed, more than 100 million copies of the Constitution will blanket the country, and parts of the document appear on everything from telephone books to posters.

Activities nationwide will commemorate Sept. 17, 1787, the date when the Constitution was signed. A parade will be held in Philadelphia, complete with descendants of the original signers of the Constitution. An 87-hour vigil will be held at the National Archives in Washington, where the Constitution is housed. And a simultaneous recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance by President Reagan and the country’s school children is planned over radio and television.

At Buena Park, Calif., new citizens will be sworn in that day at the exact replica of Independence Hall at Knott’s Berry Farm.

In an effort to assure that serious study will accompany the hoopla, bicentennial planners have placed considerable emphasis on essay and oratorical contests, symposiums and mock conventions. The federal bicentennial commission has awarded over $900,000 in education grants, including $90,000 to California projects.

Trailer Travels Country

Among the more unusual educational attractions is a specially equipped 40-foot trailer that has been traveling across the country since March on a schedule of visits to 97 towns and cities in 25 states and the District of Columbia.

The main attraction of the traveling “Roads to Liberty” exhibit is one of the four original copies of Magna Charta--which English barons forced King John to sign at Runnymede in 1215 to establish the principle that even kings are subject to a higher law. Magna Charta--a forerunner to the principles of liberty and freedom--established the right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers, no taxation without representation and freedom of religion.

“It’s much more important to you than to any place else,” said Oliver Fiennes, dean of the Lincoln Cathedral in Lincoln, England, which lent the faded vellum document.

More than 100,000 people have already seen the traveling exhibit, which is sponsored by the federal bicentennial commission and underwritten by American Express. At some stops, people have queued up for more than three hours, even in the rain, to see the ancient feudal document, which rests in a guarded case in light dimmed to prevent damage.

Absorbed in Document

“You can’t help but get caught up in it,” Don Munson, who travels with the exhibit and oversees security, said on a recent stop.

Jim Carey, a history buff from Huxley, Iowa, whose ancestors arrived in Connecticut in 1635, never expected to see the 772-year-old document, least of all in a wind-swept parking lot in Des Moines. Nor did he expect that his reaction would be to cry.

“It was the biggest thrill of my life,” he said.

As for Lou T. Fisk, he’s back at the park in Madison, bolted down, and no worse for wear from his excursion.