Presidents Truman & Garfield

Political Diseases

April 28, 2020

President Harry Truman

President James A. Garfield

Dear Presidents Truman and Garfield:

Recently, I happened to come across some quotes which were attributed to both of you. President Truman the quote which was attributed to you is easy to believe knowing your reputation for shooting from the hip and your straight forwardness:

 “Term limits would cure both senility and seniority, both terrible legislative diseases.”

I agree with you that the more seniority one has the more senility creeps in. However, today it appears that senility even impacts those with less seniority and it is probably more widespread among our elected officials.

If I may be so bold President Truman, I would like to add other diseases that term limits would cure complacency and a more virulent strain called procrastination.

Complacency sets in when a member of Congress takes his or her re-election for granted. I have seen this with my own Representative who has not had a serious challenger in the last 16 years and has not really introduced any legislation to speak of. He has become a lock stepper within his party.

Proof of these other strains is obvious.  Seventy years later Mr. President, term limits is still an issue and the diseases of complacency and procrastination still run rampant. It is logical why these two diseases are deeply imbedded. Why would someone introduce legislation that would in effect put a time limit on his or her lucrative job? This is why procrastination spreads throughout Congress and even infects all levels of state and local legislatures. A vaccine is needed.

Which brings me to you President Garfield but before I continue, I think you should know Mr. President, I am not a fan of term limits. We have term limits, it is called the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November or simply put Election Day. Term limits tells me that “We the People,” maybe are not capable of determining our destiny. Which leads me to your quote:

“Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.”

James A. Garfield

President Garfield although you do not call them diseases allow me to add them to the list. These too infect our representatives and are far worse in the big scheme of things, the diseases of ignorance, recklessness and the worst of all corruption. Your quote President Garfield is basically telling us that we are responsible for spreading these diseases and are highly likely in certain circumstance to be the carrier of them.

Therefore, we cannot let these diseases infect us as it does our representatives on every level. We must build that immunity especially an immunity against ignorance because an educated and enlightened electorate is the best vaccine. If we don’t develop that immunity, we have no one to blame but ourselves and we are in fact spreading ignorance, recklessness and corruption which are probably other strains of complacency.

“We the People” are the perfect vaccine. We do not have to wait out the disease of procrastination, we can remedy that on the First Tuesday after the First Monday in November with our vote. I am sure injecting our vaccine would shock and in most cases rid us of all those who are infected with those dreaded legislative diseases which you mentioned President Truman.

I would like to thank you both President Truman and President Garfield for allowing me to ramble and vent. With all that is currently going on in our country and around the world today with the Coronavirus and Social Distancing this letter to you provided me with some moments away from all the “Existential Threats” we are facing and to address the real ones.

Sincerely,

Andrew DeMarco

Pelham, NY