Words to Live By…

Donald Trump boldly declares himself not only a “stable person” but also a “genius.” He might indeed make a worthwhile person to work in a stable, but the matter of self-proclaimed genius brings us to memories of several previous inhabitants of the White House.

Many of us recall Franklin D. Roosevelt’s words when he was elected President and confronted the challenges of the Depression in 1933. As he explained publicly at the time, “I’m going to walk right in the White House and fix this, and I’ll make Mexico pay for it,too.” Of course he may or may not have exactly “walked” into office, but we all got his meaning, right?

And certainly historians can point to Woodrow Wilson’s election in 1916, on the eve of World War I, when he questioned the birthplace of his opponent, Charles Evans Hughes (you forgot this?) and warned that only people with big hands truly deserve to be President.

And then was President James K. Polk who not only vowed to have Mexico pay for it but actually made them pay for it by surrendering land which became the states that Mr. Trump wants to block off from Mexico. You see, all the blame for this immigration stuff goes back to Polk, who was possibly born in Kenya.

Finally, though few know about it today, there was the debate that took place among the Founding Fathers when George Washington became President and ordered his staff to find a special place for him to put his wooden teeth at night. “Is he mentally fit for office?” wondered John Adams. Washington put everyone at ease, however, when he issued a proclamation stating that he was a genius and that in the future everyone would have a wooden teeth cabinet built by Mexican immigrants. And the Mexicans would pay for it, too.