We ask presidents to do too much
In September 1935, an explosion of nine tons of dynamite devastated no fewer than a thousand homes in West Lebanon, a small community north of here in Indiana County.
The accidental detonation at a stone quarry on the outskirts of town rendered the homes unfit for occupancy. Authorities ordered homeowners and renters to keep their distance.
The New York Times, over a short story on Page 2 of its Sept. 29 edition, reported, “Explosion Wrecks Town.”
Despite the havoc and shock of the blast, the White House was silent on the matter. The president — Franklin D. Roosevelt — did not comment. At the time, he was on a train headed to the West Coast.
No one from the opposition Republican Party criticized the president for his seeming indifference to the plight of the people of West Lebanon. There were no calls for him to visit the town.
On a far larger scale was the Mississippi River flood of 1927, in which a whole region of the country was devastated and at least 246 lives were lost.
The president at the time — Calvin Coolidge — issued several proclamations asking Americans to contribute to the Red Cross, which, along with Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, ran the relief operation.
Otherwise, Coolidge remained behind the scenes. Calls for a presidential visit to the flood region were not heard.
John F. Kennedy did not play the role of “consoler in chief” in 1963 following a civil rights-era church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., which claimed the lives of four young African-American girls.
JFK failed to attend the girls’ funeral services. They were eulogized instead by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Modern day presidents would never get away with such behavior, as the recent train derailment and release of toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio, makes clear. Townspeople and Republicans have criticized President Biden for not showing up.
In addition to commander-in-chief of the armed services, chief diplomat, legislative leader, and head of a vast government bureaucracy, presidents today are expected to be kind of secular pastors on behalf of the dead, distraught, and displaced.
The president is not only “healer-in-chief” but, as East Palestine demonstrates, validator-in-chief as well. It’s a role Biden, perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not, auditioned for when he ran for president in 2020.
When candidate Biden visited with George Floyd’s mother and father in June 2020 in the aftermath of Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officers, the family’s attorney, Ben Crumb, tweeted that Biden “listened, heard their pain, and shared in their woe …”
Listening “to one another is what will begin to heal America,” Crumb, a civil rights litigator, said.
Or as CNN reported around the same time, “Throughout his campaign, Joe Biden has sought to console those experiencing loss … He has been careful to show that he is in listening mode.”
CNN quoted Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Biden political adviser, as saying, “Leadership … does need to really listen to people, so they are heard and [Biden] takes that information and provides the leadership.”
Pennsylvania state Rep. Joanne McClinton added that it was crucial that the candidate, and future president, bring “healing to the country.”
Increasingly, for presidents, the roles of “healer in chief” and “listener in chief” are converging. It comes down to this, apparently: one is impossible without the other.
It’s too much. How many functions can a president successfully fill? Failure is practically baked-in to the presidency already. Adding the pastor role may be a pulpit too far.
The bully pulpit, yes. This other pulpit is problematic. George Will worries about a “president-centric” government and country. It’s a good point, though we may be past the point of no-return.
“I speak on behalf of all Americans,” JFK said in a White House statement condemning the 1963 church bombing. His going to Birmingham was not raised. Days later, in a meeting with Black leaders, Kennedy rejected the idea of sending federal troops to the city.
“It [would mean] that we take over and then everyone just quits,” he reasoned. “… So everybody just has to keep their nerve.”
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins@gmail.com.