Lincoln lore lives on; perhaps we could include it in Cinco de Mayo tribute

It has been quite a weekend for those people who get their kicks out of dressing in period fashions and pretending they are re-enacting our history.

For it was 150 years ago Monday that the funeral services were held at Springfield’s Oak Ridge Cemetery to inter the body of then-recently assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

WHICH MEANS IT was 150 years ago Saturday that the body of Lincoln arrived in Illinois and was on display in Chicago, before taking the final portion of the Lincoln funeral train route to Springfield – pretty much along the same route of towns that now rely on Interstate 55 for their continued existence.

There actually was a replica of the Lincoln funeral train that made the trip this past weekend, giving the historic re-enactors a chance to fully pretend they were gathering for the president’s funeral services.

I can’t say I’m the type who would feel compelled to do such things, despite my own interest in history. In large part because wearing any type of authentic period garb would result in donning itchy, uncomfortable clothing.

Besides, my own girth would make me so much larger than most people of that era. Somehow, I suspect I couldn’t pull off a convincing U.S. soldier trying to escort the presidential casket to the cemetery.

I HOPE THE people who did do such things enjoyed themselves. And that their actions help some people recall the many events of the past four years that were meant to remind us of the Civil War our nation engaged in to maintain the character that was desired by some.

Even though I’m sure there are those amongst us who could easily have adapted if the concept of secession in the name of “state’s rights” had somehow prevailed. We just wouldn’t have known better how much more we’d have as a single nation if the southern states had somehow managed to become their own nation.

We probably would be a pair of mediocre nations in the world that never would have achieved international status had our Civil War had a different outcome.

I was sort of surprised that more in the way of ceremony wasn’t done this weekend at the Calumet City/Hammond border – also known as the Illinois/Indiana state line.

FOR THAT WAS the place where a few years ago local officials insisted in erecting a plaque designating the spot of State Street and State Line Road as the spot where the Lincoln funeral train re-entered Illinois on its route from Washington, D.C., to Springfield.

Although it should be noted that the area near the Indiana Dunes was largely undeveloped then. It now has cities such as Gary and Hammond, Ind., along with Calumet City, Ill. But none of those municipalities existed back then. All of this Lincoln lore makes me wonder what can be re-enacted next.

Perhaps somebody would like to try to re-enact the events that were supposed to take place on Nov. 7, 1876 – a group of counterfeiters hatched a plot to steal Lincoln’s body from the tomb, hide the body by burying it in the Indiana Dunes and demand a $200,000 ransom AND the release of one of their allies from the Joliet Penitentiary.

Not that Lincoln’s remains ever suffered the remains of being buried under lakeshore property enjoyed by generations of future beachgoers. The counterfeiters had big mouths, talked too much, and the Secret Service wound up putting an undercover agent among the gang when they tried to break into the tomb.

THE GANG ESCAPED, but was caught 10 days later in Chicago and ultimately wound up serving a year each in prison. It’s a sordid story that I’m sure most people were never taught about in grammar school history class.

Although I wonder if the Lincoln-motivated re-enactors ought to be trying to do something on Tuesday – which happens to be the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo.

That being the day when a Mexican resistance to France’s attempt to control Mexico managed to defeat a French military garrison near Puebla – thereby giving positive motivation to Mexican nationals of regaining their nation’s freedom.

A good part of the reason why they were able to do so was that U.S. support in the form of ties between Lincoln and Mexico President-in-exile Benito Juarez existed. Put a Lincoln twist on Tuesday’s celebrations and perhaps we’d have something more substantial than just a day spent drinking third-rate margaritas.

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Quinn wants the Latino vote come November. Who will he honor to get it?

I’m starting to wonder if Gov. Pat Quinn is mistaking March for Hispanic Heritage Month.

Searching for voters at the theater?

Either he is, or maybe he’s just that eager to have Latino voters think he’s aware of us to the point that we’ll contemplate giving him our votes come the Nov. 4 election for Illinois governor.

IT WAS JUST over a week ago that Quinn went so far as to declare the day Benito Juarez Day across Illinois. For the one-time president of Mexico who helped ensure that the nation remain an independent entity and U.S. ally – rather than a French colony that would have given aid and comfort to those forces that wanted to split the United States in two back in the mid-19^th Century.

Now, he’s made the declaration that makes Monday officially Cesar Chavez Day across the Land of Lincoln.

We’re not alone. This is actually the anniversary of the birth of the founder of the United Farm Workers labor union. He’d be 87 now, if he hadn’t have died at age 66 back in 1993. Many places with significant Latino populations (particularly in the southwestern U.S.) have made the same declaration.

Although it should be noted that Quinn made his declaration on Friday with a public appearance to add his praise to Chavez – who back in his own time would have had those who wanted to view him as a radical (just like Martin Luther King, Jr.). All because he touted the cause of people the establishment would have preferred to ignore.

BUT WHO NOW are much less venomous in their rhetoric – also just like King. Because they see now how ridiculous their rants were.

Of course, by doing his thing on Friday, Quinn got to get himself a plug on the same day that actor/director Diego Luna’s new film about the life of Chavez came out in movie theaters across the nation. It’s becoming his new tactic, just as he used to be the “Sunday press conference” man to ensure he’d get covered.

Which may mean all the people who felt compelled to see the film when it came out this weekend might be more inclined to think favorably upon the “Mighty Quinn.”

He wants to win

“Cesar Chavez organized the United Farm Workers to fight for fair wages, humane living conditions and basic dignity for some of the most oppressed workers on earth,” Quinn said, while also reminding us of the time he got to meet Chavez back in 1974 – back in the days when he was a low-level staffer in the administration of then-Gov. Dan Walker.

“HIS MESSAGE OF juntos podemos (together, we can) has stayed with me to this day,” said Quinn. Is he trying to be like Barack Obama's 2008 usurping of "Yes, We Can?" Or just different from Republican challenger Bruce Rauner -- whose minority vote strategy seems to be discouraging African-American voters from bothering to vote at all!

It’s not often that a governor is able to use a major motion picture release to try to gain himself some public attention. I don’t even recall him trying to use the Steven Spielberg film “Lincoln” to get himself support.

Then again, that film came out during a presidential election year cycle, and not a gubernatorial one..

Now I suspect that much of the audience for this particular film is going to be an ethnic-inspired crowd. I couldn’t help but notice that the one movie theater near I live that is actually showing the film is making a point of devoting two screens to it – one for showings of the film proper, and another for showings of the film dubbed into Spanish.

I KNOW SOME people are going to think it odd that a film about a Mexican-American (he was born here, and served in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War) needs to be dubbed into Spanish, as though it were one of those tacky Japanese films about Godzilla or Mothra.

Will Quinn seek support here too?

But this will be one of those films that will attract a larger-than-usual Latino film-goers crowd just because it will be one of the few films that depicts a Latino as something other than a drug-dealer or maid.

So Quinn trying to reach out to voters by giving days to people of Latin American ethnic origins could be part of the political strategy.

I’m just wondering if he has a list of possible people already prepared. If he turns out to be a big-enough bat for the Chicago White Sox, will we get Jose Abreu Day sometime between Monday’s Opening Day and season’s end?

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EDITOR’S NOTE: I haven’t gone to see the Cesar Chavez film yet, just as I will not be at U.S. Cellular Field on Monday. I suspect if I wait a few days, I can catch the film with a smaller crowd on hand. Just as the White Sox will play 80 more home games following the opener for 2014.

Does Quinn’s Juarez tribute boost him amongst Chicago’s Latino population?

It may be pure coincidence. Perhaps I’m reading way too much into this.

QUINN: Seeking Latino vote?

But I’m sure Gov. Pat Quinn doesn’t mind the way the timing worked out over his participation in a ceremony held Friday in Chicago to pay tribute to the memory of one-time Mexico President Benito Juarez.

AS IT TURNS out, Friday’s events at the Thompson Center state government building to mark the 208^th anniversary of Juarez’ birth allowed for a proclamation that said Friday was Benito Juarez Day in Illinois.

Which came one day after Quinn’s current political opponent, Republican gubernatorial nominee Bruce Rauner, released his first campaign advertising spot of the general election cycle – and it’s in Spanish.

I suspect that reaching out to Latino voters is going to be a crucial part of Rauner’s attempts to unseat Quinn – and that first ad telling us en Espanol how inept Quinn has been is just the first step.

Not that I think Rauner (“Mr. .01 percent?”) really cares about the growing Latino population. But any votes he can steal from Quinn help benefit his own desires.

WHICH MAKES ME wonder how much of Friday’s activities were Quinn’s way of showing he, too, cares about the Latino segment of the electorate?

He makes a gesture to show support to Latino (actually in this case, Mexican) culture. It doesn’t win him an election all by itself.

But it does show that at least somebody on his staff had a sense of history in mind, which allows for the governor to gain the benefits of a Friday morning ceremony at the Thompson Center – where a display had been erected in recent days to pay tribute to Juarez’ memory.

Cinema's takes on Juarez ..

For those of you whose sense of history doesn’t go back any farther than the name “Ronald Reagan,” Juarez was a Mexican political leader who became president in the 1860s – a time when the United States was split in civil war and Mexico had its own mess with the French attempting to intervene by trying to reassert an American colonial presence at Mexico’s expense.

JUAREZ SPENT MUCH of his presidency in exile, but was able to maintain a movement of an independent Mexico that kept the French from establishing themselves permanently in North America, while also keeping the French from being able to offer aid and comfort to the concept of a Confederacy that would have split the United States in two.

... and Lincoln

He also had a vision of Democracy for Mexico, modeled after the United States. Which is how he got the tags, “the Abraham Lincoln of Mexico” and “Father of the Americas.”

It also is noteworthy that when Lincoln was elected president following the 1860 elections and was preparing to travel to Washington to assume the post, it was an emissary of Juarez who first met with Lincoln at his downtown Springfield home to offer congratulations.

So it’s not like there weren’t ties between Juarez and Lincoln. It becomes a matter of Quinn aides knowing their history that they were able to make the connection and stage the event that will make Quinn seem more aware.

AND THE FACT that officials from the Dominican Republic and Colombia took part expanded it beyond a merely-Mexican event, although I’m sure Quinn will now try to find ways to reach out to the Puerto Rican community (which does comprise the other third of Chicago’s Latino population).

RAUNER: Who would he honor?

It certainly is a better response by Quinn than that nonsensical (and Internet-only) ad the guv gave us Thursday that compared Rauner to “Mr. Burns” of “The Simpsons.”

Now as to Juarez’ birthday, how will Rauner retort? Is there a financier with Illinois ties whom Rauner can praise?

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EXTRA: My governor went to Mexico, and all I got was this lousy photograph

Gov. Pat Quinn effectively serves as a mailman for students of Benito Juarez Academy in Chicago, as he delivered letters from local students to their counterparts at Benito Juarez High School in Mexico City. Photographs provided by state of Illinois.

A part of me can’t help but wonder if come Monday, Gov. Pat Quinn is going to be the equivalent of a tourist who insists on showing us a batch of crude snapshots of himself taken during a recent vacation.

For Quinn is the public official who led a coalition of Illinois-based business executives to Mexico; taking a four-day tour of the southern third of the North American continent to promote the idea that there is lots of money for our local businesses to make down there.

BY THE TIME you read this, Quinn may well be back in Chicago. He was scheduled to leave Mexico City on Saturday – and in fact was to proclaim the day “WVON Day” across Illinois during ceremonies to be held tonight at the Chicago Theatre.

But he is supposed to tour the Cristina Foods Inc. distribution facility around 45^th Street and Racine Avenue come Monday, and his aides admit he will use the tour to discuss the trade mission.

Are we going to be subjected to the equivalent of a lot of blurred snapshots and tales of how unique everything is in Mexico?

Quinn amongst people who don't care about Lisa Madigan

I’m not kidding about the snapshots. I couldn’t help but be amused by the photographs Quinn’s staff distributed to newsgathering organizations on Saturday – a pair of snapshots of Quinn visiting the Benito Juarez High School in Mexico City.

AS THOUGH HE had to go all that way to visit a school named for the one-time Mexican president whose leadership ensured that the nation didn’t fall into the hands of French officials who were interested in re-establishing a colonial presence in the Americas.

Of course, I realize Quinn knows about the Benito Juarez Community Academy in the Pilsen neighborhood. He went to the Mexico City school armed with letters that Chicago teenagers had written to their counterparts in the Mexico capital city.

By and large, these trade missions may help business officials make some contacts. But they also serve a role in bloating a governor’s ego – making him think that he might have some influence in foreign lands. Rather than the old joke about an Illinois governor mattering in places like Paris, Vienna and Havana.

All of which are rural towns in central and Southern Illinois.

SO I’M NOT terribly shocked, or offended, that the news world will seem to little note, nor long remember, the visit of Pat Quinn to Mexico – even if he tried bringing the image of Abraham Lincoln (whose own words I just appropriated) along with him.

For all I know, many in Illinois may not have even noticed him missing. It seems like these days, political people are more interested in talking about “Lisa Madigan” whenever the Illinois governor’s post comes up in discussion.

Although I did find it intriguing to learn while reading through the mass of materials that Quinn’s people have distributed about his trip to learn that Lake Michigan now has a “sister lake” in Mexico.

The Great Lake that is the eastern boundary of much of Chicago is now an hermana with Lake Pàtzcuaro in the state of Michoacan.

Lake Michigan's new Mexican sister. The lake and Illinois River have sister bodies of water in Brazil, China, Ireland, Israel, Poland and South Korea. Photograph by Mirari Erdoiza.

 

AMONG THE THINGS the two lakes have in common? They both are having to deal with problems of invasive species that threaten to ruin their ecosystems.

Perhaps we can get some Mexican advice on how to keep the Asian Carp out of Lake Michigan – or minimize their damage on the off-chance that they’re already here, but we just haven’t noticed yet!

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EXTRA: Gov. Quinn's Mexico venture

Roughly one of every six Chicago residents is of Mexican ethnic origin.

QUINN: Busy for the week

So perhaps it shouldn’t be the least bit surprising that Gov. Pat Quinn will leave Wednesday for a four-day journey to Mexico. It will be the fifth trade mission – the others were to Brazil and Canada, along with China and Japan – taken by the Mighty Quinn since the day he succeeded the now-impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

IF ANYTHING, IT might be worth saying, “It’s about time,” since an Illinois governor hasn’t gone to Mexico since 2000 – although I remember both George Ryan and Jim Edgar before him making the trip.

Admittedly, this will be a ritual whose purpose is to give Illinois-based companies a chance to make more contacts so that they can do more business with Mexican-based business interests.

If it works properly, it can bolster our local economy. Such as when Quinn meets with officials of Bimbo bakeries, whose U.S. subsidiary, Grupo Bimbo USA owns such product brands found often in our supermarkets such as Entenmann’s donuts and cakes and may well wind up buying a portion of the Hostess product names (even if they didn’t get the “Twinkie” brand).

Illinois exports to Mexico totaled $6.4 million in 2012 – making it the second-largest largest trading partner for our home state.

IF IT DOESN’T, then Quinn will get to say he escaped the 30-degree-type temperatures we’re going to face this week. Since the weather is expected to warm up to more spring-like temperatures by Saturday (the day he’s scheduled to return).

Of course, Quinn will try to make his trip seem like more of a cultural event. Hence, there will be the rituals paying tribute to one-time Mexico President Benito Juarez, along with his political contemporary Abraham Lincoln.

Both men are amongst the most honored leaders of their respective countries – even if height-wise, they were about as far apart as one could envision.

MONARCHS: Regular visitors to Mexico

Reading through the material released by Quinn’s staff, I also couldn’t help but notice an event meant to promote Monarch butterflies, which migrate between the Midwestern U.S. and Michoacãn in Mexico.

THE MONARCH BUTTERFLY is, of course, the official insect of Illinois. Although I’m now wondering if we’ll get some nitwit ideologues who will call for the butterfly’s deportation and removal from such an honor because of its Mexican ties.

But as already stated, the purpose of this trip is meant to be to promote joint business efforts – which is why a lot of CEOs will be accompanying the governor.

Although in looking over the list of corporations making the trip, I couldn’t help but be amused by the inclusion of Geno’s East on the list.

Maybe it is in everybody’s interests to promote the idea of a decent pan pizza in Mexico. I’m just wondering how much of an outburst will we hear from officials with Lou Malnati’s – ranting and raging that they were dissed even though they offer up a superior pizza pie!

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