The Post-Journal

    Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes?

LOCAL COMMENTARIES

JUN 15, 2024

ROLLAND KIDDER

There is a wonderful country song sung by George Jones which is about great country singers who have now passed or someday will. To give you a taste of it, here are four lines:

“Who’s gonna fill their shoes?

Who’s gonna stand that tall?

Who’s gonna play the Opry

And the Wabash cannonball?

The answer, of course, is that no one can likely fill their shoes. Country singers are one of a kind. However, there is a subtheme, I believe, in the song, and that is that transitions are coming for all of us, either in life or in death. We cannot stop them. The question then is: How do we prepare for them? Who’s gonna fill our shoes?

As to dying, the answer is pretty clear — you should have a will. Even if your estate is small, it is not fair to have your heirs squabble over matters you could have addressed in a will making your intentions known.

Probably, more important, is the making of proper transitions while you are alive. For example, if you are changing jobs — make it easy for yourself, your family, your employer, and fellow employees by planning ahead for it. The same goes for politics. If you hold an elective office, you should let people know in advance if you not going to run again — so that they have an opportunity to choose a successor.

However, I think the most important transition is for those who own businesses, because transitions there can affect the livelihood of many as well as impact family dynamics.

I knew a man who was the owner of a very successful family business employing hundreds of people. Yet, his “Achilles heel” became evident when he tried to pass the business down to his three children – none of whom were either interested in or capable of running the business. It ended up in bankruptcy.

On the other hand, I have another friend who had a family business with three children who wanted to be a part of it. He worked out a transition where all three children eventually had businesses of their own, including keeping the existing family business going. That is what you call good transition planning.

Sometimes there is no family transition possible, so other arrangements need to be made. In that regard, it was good to see in the newspaper recently where two local businesses were sold to employees, financed in part by assistance from our local Industrial Development Agency (IDA.) To me, that is exactly the kind of activity the IDA should be involved with – retaining local jobs by helping with a business transition.

So, the moral of the story is that whether we like it or believe it — transitions in life and death are coming, are inevitable and should be planned for. Enabling someone else to “wear those shoes” is important.

Yet, George Jones has a point — some country singers are so good that I don’t think their “shoes” will ever be filled. Certainly, for sure, there will never be another Johnny Cash… who, on one unforgettable day, before an audience of inmates, sang the “Folsom Prison Blues” at Folsom Prison.

 

 

 

    A Jury Judges A Former President

                                                                                        JUN 8, 2024

ROLLAND KIDDER

For the first time in our history, a 12-person jury of one’s peers unanimously found a former President guilty of a felony after applying the highest level of proof in our judicial system… “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”

There are really two stories here — that of our judicial system and that of Donald Trump.

Trump’s story has been quite consistent — he has never done anything wrong, all of the court cases he is now a defendant in are “witch-hunts” perpetrated by Democrats, he is a victim of political intrigue against him, etc., etc.

What he doesn’t say is that all of the civil actions, indictments, and now a felony conviction are related, primarily, to one common thing — his own behavior.

I can think of no other politician in our history, President or former President, who has brought so much litigation upon himself.

These charges and convictions have all come from things that he did or tried to cover-up. Some are civil matters where large money damages were awarded to a woman he assaulted. Other actions deal with criminal charges associated with the way then President Trump treated classified documents, fired up a crowd to attack the Capitol, or in making phone calls to Georgia officials to try to change election results.

In all cases, the cause of his problems has been his own behavior. It wasn’t something foisted upon him, yet, he calls himself the “victim.”

The jury story coming out of last week’s conviction is, for me, a compelling one.

De Tocqueville, when he visited our country in the 1830s, was taken by the fact that in most frontier towns, the first public building constructed was a courthouse. One of the first things that Americans did in moving West, was to put up a building where citizens could litigate their differences and where the rule of law could be applied.

As to the criminal law, it is framed to favor the defendant whose freedom is at stake. In a criminal trial, the burden is upon the government to make its case, a unanimous decision is required for conviction, and the rules of evidence generally favor the defendant.

I remember also, when in law school, studying the manner in which the jury system was developed under British common law. A juror was described as a “man on the Clapham bus,” that is, an ordinary or reasonable person, not a person of power or prestige. It is such common people picked from a random pool of potential jurors who make up a jury. Serving as a juror, to those so chosen, is a civic obligation, and they take it seriously.

Twelve people from the “Clapham bus,” from various occupations, ethnic backgrounds, consisting of 7 men and 5 women found unanimously, beyond a “reasonable doubt,” that Donald Trump was guilty. After listening to 5 weeks of testimony, the verdict was returned within two days on all 34 counts.

That is good enough for me. The jury listened, evaluated and decided. That is the American way. Of course, how it plays out in the election is still an unknown.

Nevertheless, it was good to see that the rule of law applies to everyone in this country, including Presidents. However, it is sad that the country has to go through all of this. It is not an uplifting time in our history.

 

                                                   The Post-Journal

  Thirty Years With The National             World War II Memorial

LOCAL COMMENTARIES

JUN 1, 2024

ROLLAND KIDDER

 This past Memorial Day weekend in Washington, D.C., we commemorated the 20th year of the dedication of the National World War II Memorial. It was a special time. For me, it had all started in 1994, thirty years ago, when I had been first appointed by the President to the commission responsible for its creation and then became a member of the World War II Memorial Site and Design Committee.

There was one major “player” who wasn’t there that weekend, the chairman of that committee, Ambassador F. Haydn Williams, now deceased. Though he guided the design process, likely his greatest contribution was in finding, recommending and then working to have the site approved by the “powers that be” in Washington.

We had spent a rainy afternoon in January, 1995 visiting various proposed sites for the Memorial from a list which had been recommended by the Commission of Fine Arts of the United States (CFA.) At the end of that tour, we walked past the old Rainbow Pool, then in need of repair, at the end the Reflecting Pool. Willams stopped us there, a site that was not on that list, looked up at the Lincoln Memorial to the west, and the Washington Monument to the east and said: “This is where we should build the World War II Memorial. The Second World War was the most significant event for America in the Twentieth Century. It should be here, on the axis of the Mall, between Lincoln and Washington.”

It was the first I had heard of his vision for the site, and he never wavered from it. By July of that year, he had convinced the President of the CFA, J. Carter Brown, that the Rainbow Pool site should be considered. In September of that year, it was approved. In November, President Clinton, in a ceremony at the location, dedicated the site…and soon thereafter we commenced a national competition to select an architect to design the Memorial.

Ambassador Williams, during those days, spoke of the National Mall as “America’s Village Green.” In pursuing the approvals necessary to have this special site for the Memorial, he would say: “We are not looking to memorialize hubris or vainglory. We want to build something that will capture the American spirit of unity and common purpose at that time, and to also find a way to remember those who didn’t make it home, to bring them back to America’s Village Green.”

If he were alive today, Haydn Williams would be pleased with what the Memorial has become. Over 80 million have visited here since its dedication. It has become a place to gather and remember what a Nation can do when it is united in a just and common cause.

When you visit a World War II American Military Cemetery overseas, like the one at Normandy, you are overcome by a sense of common purpose and sacrifice. The thousands of marble crosses and stars of David that mark the graves are of the same size. One is not more important than the others. Generals are buried next to the lowliest Private. Rank doesn’t matter in those cemeteries.

You get the same sense of common purpose and sacrifice at the World War II Memorial . There are 56 granite pillars representing the states and territories of that time. Yet, the most populous state at the time, New York, has no larger pillar than American Samoa, probably the smallest territory. They all contributed, they were all working together. A huge, intertwined bronze rope visually connects and brings the pillars together.

The 4,000 stars on the freedom wall are separate and distinct, yet, they receive their power because they are together, each representing 100 of the 400,000 Americans who died in the war.

As you enter the Memorial from the granite arches on either north or south, positioned above you is a large, bronze victory laurel. The laurels are held there, not by rifles or bayonets, but by four sculpted American eagles with 12 ft. wingspans sitting atop beautiful bronze columns. They symbolize the American spirit from a united people that won that war.

If you haven’t as yet visited this special place, you should try to go. You will come home feeling more connected to your history and with a greater appreciation of what it means to be an American.