July 30, 2007
American Ceremony II Posted by Alexander Burns at 12:25 PM EST I liked John Steele Gordon’s post this morning about Americans’ approach to ceremony. Informality has long been a distinguishing feature of American public life. The etiquette that instructs citizens to address their head of state as “Mr. President” rather than something grander sets a pretty clear standard from the top down. Such pompous customs as we’ve had have often been worn away over time by democratic impulses. One example of such a custom was Harvard University’s longstanding tradition of escorting the governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to commencement each year with an armed, mounted honor guard. The guard members came from the Massachusetts ceremonial militia, the National Lancers. Clad in crimson and carrying pikes, these escorts chauffeured governors to commencement from the age of John Winthrop to the more recent days of Francis Sargent. For centuries, the governor rode a carriage from the gold-domed capitol building to Harvard Yard; with the invention of the automobile, governors began traveling in stately open cars. In 1963 Governor Endicott Peabody went for a retro look and brought back the horse and carriage for his trip. The fashion didn’t catch–perhaps because one needs a name like “Endicott Peabody” to pull it off. The tradition came to an end some time in the 1970s, when, as I understand it, a liberal Democratic governor decided that he didn’t need the adornment of an honor guard. In fact, he preferred mass transit to any more elaborate means of conveyance. The governor’s name was Michael Dukakis. Subsequent governors may have been tempted to resurrect the practice. I suspect Bill Weld, the scion of a venerable Harvard family, might have found the idea alluring. The trouble is, when a custom like this is disestablished in a populist, magnanimous-seeming gesture, it’s hard to revive it without looking like a prig. And of course, it’s worth noting that Dukakis was right about the benefits of mass transit. Anyone who tries driving from Memorial Church in Cambridge to Beacon Hill at rush hour will find themselves wishing they had taken the subway. It might be an easier drive if you’re surrounded by pike-wielding bodyguards, but few of us could ever know that luxury.
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