Always America First
It was too cold this past weekend to do much, so I found myself watching a little television, and happened upon a short segment on C-SPAN about the coat George Washington wore to his first inauguration as president, which has been on display at Mount Vernon recently.
That may not sound interesting at first blush, but one of the things that attracted my attention was that the coat was made of cloth produced in the new country, the United States. Manufacturing here at that time was not as advanced as in Europe, so as a result, the cloth produced there was of a higher quality–higher thread count, etc.
But Washington insisted that the coat he wore to that first swearing in ceremony in 1789 be made of American-made cloth. Apparently supply chain was an issue even then, as he had a hard time getting cloth from a Pennsylvania merchant and entrusted the new country’s first Secretary of War, Henry Knox, to personally get the cloth from Connecticut to his home in Virginia so that a tailor there could make the coat and related vest and trousers.
The outfit was still formal, but rather plain. Curators believe it was Washington showing himself as a man of the people, not as an elitist. Regardless, he knew that the leader of the new country had to set an example, right down to “buying American” for his clothing. If the United States was to become economically self-sufficient, you had to support those producers above others.
If that sounds familiar on this Inauguration Day, it should–and it’s no more complicated than promoting the interests of your own country, at all levels, ahead of others. That’s not jingoistic, or punitive…but smart.
I haven’t taken a trip on a plane in some years, but I presume they still advise that in the event of a problem, you put your oxygen mask on first before helping others–after all, if you are not at full strength, you are of no help to others.
So, too, with this nation as a whole. Use whatever slogan you want, but as I am fond of saying, this is the greatest nation God ever blessed. We need to act that way.
The first president knew that. And now, 236 years later, so does the forty-seventh.
