Posted on 11/28/2005 9:27:23 AM PST by flutters
A century-old statue of President William McKinley in a historical plaza in Arcata, Calif., has long been a target for pranksters.
Vandals have used cheese, condoms and marijuana to abuse the likeness of the 25th president, an Ohio native.
Questions over McKinley's legacy, however - an off-and-on debate about his role in starting the Spanish-American War has flared up again - are what really has the town atwitter.
The notion came as a surprise to Janet Metzger, librarian at the Wm. McKinley Presidential Library & Museum in Canton, where the future president launched his career.
"I was just amazed," Metzger said. "You think of the mild-mannered man the way I have come to think of him, and he doesn't seem like the type they would try to pin this on."
McKinley, who was elected in 1900, was born in Niles, near Youngstown, and later moved to Canton. A plaque beneath his bust near the library's entrance describes him as "an obedient and affectionate son, patriotic and faithful as a solider, honest and upright as a citizen, tender and devoted as a husband, and truthful, generous, unselfish, moral and clean in every relation of life."
That's not how Michael Schleyer sees it. Last month, the Arcata resident presented city officials with 1,300 signatures on a petition seeking to remove the statue there. Some have suggested sending the statue to the family of the man who commissioned it or to the Canton museum.
"The truth of McKinley is he's just like any of the other people who throughout history caused mass destruction and death," said Schleyer, who has compared McKinley to Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong.
The statue in Arcata, a coastal city of about 17,000 some 200 miles northwest of Sacramento, has stood since 1906. features McKinley in a topcoat with his left arm at his side and his right hand partly extended, palm up. It was commissioned by an Arcata resident after McKinley's assassination in 1901 and was dedicated in 1906.
"It was installed on July 4 with quite a bit of ceremony," said Dan Hauser, Arcata city manager and a former councilman and mayor. "The whole town turned out."
On various occasions, the distinguished sculpture has had a gas mask fitted over its head, cheese stuffed in its ears and condoms wrapped around its thumb.
"People have grown pot in the dirt around him," said Gino Pitino, 21, son of Arcata Councilman Paul Pitino. "The funniest thing I've probably seen is one New Year's where there was toilet paper wrapped around his head and there were three naked (female college students) lounging on him, and it wasn't like he was a sexy guy or anything."
Despite the statue's longevity, people in Arcata don't particularly identify with McKinley, Gino Pitino said.
"I went to grade school here since fourth grade, and from fourth grade until ... I started going to junior college, we never learned one thing about McKinley," he said.
Why can't KKKalifornia just secede and be done with it?
The REAL hero of Canton and his statue
"Hello. I am a moron. Someone told me that William McKinley was a Republican. I figure he must be worse than Hitler. Would you like fries with that?"
Why the Hitler claim? I can find nothing distubing at all searching.
Yeah that's right - there has NEVER been a war that the US didn't start....
Michael Schleyer: I Googled him and basically came up with an old hippie with a PhD in education. Bout right.
The Philippines.
The HERO of Canton the Man the call Jayne!
Thank you - that was absolutely the first thing I thought when I saw this thread.
Do you think if all 100,000 plus FReepers sign a petition we could have all liberals removed from the country?
They all offend me.
Did you see this one.......
President William McKinley was a Union Civil War Veteran who was at the Battle of Antietam and fought at Burnside's Bridge. How soon we forget.
> Goals - total enlightenment, holding the vibration...
Ummm... how does one "hold the vibration?"
Wait... maybe I don't really want to know.
> Ideal Mate - spiritually oriented, vegetarian, vegan or preferably living foods advocate...
[zombie mode ON] Brains....[/zombie mode OFF]
I don't know. I always thought they used hampsters for that.
In the past, McKinley was dismissed as just another one of the boring do-nothing 19th-century Presidents, the last one before the exciting Teddy Roosevelt, but there seems to be a re-evaluation underway that gives McKinley more credit.
Of course he is linked to the War with Spain and the US decision to annex Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. For those for whom US imperialism is one of the worst evils of the past 100 years or so, he's one of the bad guys. In fact, he resembles Bush not only in wanting the spread civilization, even at the cost of American lives, but in being ridiculed as supposedly not mentally up to the job of President.
No surprise, it's Moonbat Central.
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