Selling the Constitution
Is California once again to be held up for ridicule before the entire world?
The California Bicentennial Commission (Metro, Aug. 24) on the U.S. Constitution doesn’t need a zoo; it is creating a circus and they are the clowns. Bison tennial Ben indeed! What an insult to poor old Ben Franklin and to the citizens of California. It is not necessary to trivialize our heritage in order to celebrate it.
Please, Sen. Gary K. Hart (D-Santa Barbara), resume the fight to stop all funding for the commission. What good can possibly derive from “putting a copy of the Constitution in the hands of every Californian when the executive vice president of the commission, Peter Paul, says “Who’s going to read a lot of 18th-Century English?” So he’s going to sell a summary of the Constitution to the banks!
Prof. Jack Rakove, of Stanford, who wisely resigned from the commission, is correct in stating that the whole approach being taken is inane. Not only is it inane, it is inexcusably degrading to what those “39 sweaty old men arguing in Philadelphia” created.
Something must be done to redirect this travesty. Perhaps the first step should be cutting off the circus money.
SHIRLEY B. MAULLER
Pasadena
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