Florence King

America’s greatest tradition: inventing spurious traditions

From the State of the Union address to the marine’s salute as the president leaves his helicopter, we like nothing better than creating complicated little rituals

 

Fredericksburg, Virginia

Obama forgot he had a cup in his hand as he saluted and nearly poured the contents over his own head

Americans crave traditions. The older they are the more we cherish them. Thanksgiving, which beats out Christmas, was invented by Abe Lincoln in 1863 but it is an outgrowth of the timeless harvest festival celebrated by the generations of mankind that formed the earliest agricultural communities. Much harder is inventing traditions from something new. In this we are unsurpassed. Take the president’s annual State of the Union address to congress. Ever since Thomas Jefferson’s time, a clerk from the House of Representatives read it in a rapid drone and then left. But in 1917, facing entry into Europe’s first world war, President Woodrow Wilson decided to deliver the address in person. Since then the speech has always been delivered by the president himself, in keeping with tradition.

From then on it was open season on any and every tradition we could invent. A Supreme Court clerk used to hold the Bible at Inauguration; now the first lady does. The president used to wear morning coat and top hat on this day, until 1953 when Eisenhower wore a business suit. In 1961 JFK revived the morning coat and top hat; Johnson and Nixon broke with the new old tradition and wore business suits in keeping with the old new tradition. Nobody had any doubt what Jimmy Carter would wear, so at his inauguration in 1977 he started the tradition of getting out of the limousine and walking part of the way to the White House. After that they all started getting out and walking (and holding hands with the first lady), including Reagan, who honoured both the new former tradition and the former old tradition in a modified version of morning dress: striped trousers, black suit jacket, soft shirt, and four-in-hand tie.

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