It is fitting that you choose the birthday of George Washington as the date on which the men of Notre Dame pay formal tribute to our country and its eternal principles. For Washington’s Birthday, long before it became a delight to children excused from school and shoppers flocking to one-cent sales, was a day dedicated to the memory of not only the greatness of our first President but also to the greatness of the nation he led.
The custom of celebrating the 22nd of February dates back to 1783. According to the historian McMaster, “On that day and year a number of gentlemen met in a tavern at New York. One had written an ode; another brought a list of toasts. All, before they went reeling and singing home, agreed to assembly in the future on the 22nd of February and make merry over the birthday of Washington,” their illustrious commander-in-chief, protector and deliverer.
From this small, if not quiet, beginning, the practice of commemorating General Washington’s birthday spread. Every year, flags were displayed, cannons were fired, bells were rung, bonfires lit, cotillions held and toasts drunk in every city in the land. It was, in the words of one newspaper at that time, “America’s political Christmas” — a day of popular tribute to the nation’s most popular man, a day to honor him, to thank him, to wish him well, a day as permanent in the lives of the American people as the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving.
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Senator John Kennedy's Speech on Washington's Birthday, 1957
It is fitting that you choose the birthday of George Washington as the date on which the men of Notre Dame pay formal tribute to our country and its eternal principles. For Washington’s Birthday, long before it became a delight to children excused from school and shoppers flocking to one-cent sales, was a day dedicated to the memory of not only the greatness of our first President but also to the greatness of the nation he led.
The custom of celebrating the 22nd of February dates back to 1783. According to the historian McMaster, “On that day and year a number of gentlemen met in a tavern at New York. One had written an ode; another brought a list of toasts. All, before they went reeling and singing home, agreed to assembly in the future on the 22nd of February and make merry over the birthday of Washington,” their illustrious commander-in-chief, protector and deliverer.
From this small, if not quiet, beginning, the practice of commemorating General Washington’s birthday spread. Every year, flags were displayed, cannons were fired, bells were rung, bonfires lit, cotillions held and toasts drunk in every city in the land. It was, in the words of one newspaper at that time, “America’s political Christmas” — a day of popular tribute to the nation’s most popular man, a day to honor him, to thank him, to wish him well, a day as permanent in the lives of the American people as the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving.
Read it all.