A Birth to Remember

Peter's Journal February 21, 2008

On this day in 1913 John Seeley came into this world.  John would have been 95 years old today. 

Our nation was a vastly different place then.  The Saturday Evening Post was in its heyday and the likes of J.C. Leyendecker and Normal Rockwell were beginning to illustrate a simple time that has long since disappeared.  Our population was a third of what it is today, we were not at war, and the covers of our magazines like Home Life, Ladies Home Journal, Comfort, Youth’s Companion, and Successful Farming, to name just a few, tell of a nation comfortable with its patriotism.

On the cover of the July issue of Successful Farming, an orator is portrayed reading the Declaration of Independence.  His frustration is evident as he wipes his brow with one hand and cradles the facsimile of our famous document in his other hand as fireworks explode around him and a mother comforts a crying baby. The distractions being what they were, he was not to be deterred.

This simple illustration sums up for me in one regard the life of John Seeley.  Though born in England and raised in Canada, he exemplified the best of what America has to offer.  Learned beyond the level of most everyone, his patriotic humility could be summed up in his famous statement “I love my country for what it is and what she shall become.”   John saw that the work of the founding fathers was yet to be finished.  We were still becoming a great nation finding liberty and justice for all.  We had a ways to go and because of this he was willing to speak out where he saw injustice or dishonor by our government/leaders.  He saw the declaration of the 57 signers of an historic document as honoring all men, women and children.  The truth John held evident was that our nation was founded on the principle of equality, justice and valuing all who came to our shores; as did he decades ago.  He however, like the great orator from the 1913 issue of Successful Farming felt frustrated by the distractions that swirled around him throughout his life.  Perhaps the noise of World War 1 that he heard as an infant became the lingering cacophony that motivated him to make his adopted countries better.  Wars interrupted his 95 years on several occasions. No pacifist, he participated eagerly in the fight against Hitler.  But no militarist and no fool, he never saw a later war that shouldn’t be opposed as tragically wasting of blood and resources and debasing the values of our society at home.

Controversy surrounding his enlightened views about capital punishment, corporal punishment, human rights, torture, and religion often became capable of preventing the progress that he hoped for.

John knew that dissent, sacrifice, and risk were the mark of the true patriot.  He never, metaphorically or literally wrapped himself in the flag, at least to my knowledge, yet he reminded me time and time again of the men who risked everything to form a nation independent of the Crown of England.  John was a modern day member of the party who tossed the tea into Boston Harbor.  His voice was never silent, and for very good reason.  We are a democratic nation in the process of becoming; thank goodness that John shared almost a century reminding us of what patriotism is really all about.

(Thanks to John Seeley Jr. for his editing skills and contributions to this remembrance.)