{"id":206748,"date":"2026-05-31T09:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T09:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/206748\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T09:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T09:58:11","slug":"editorial-sign-controversy-lingers-in-philly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/206748\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: Sign controversy lingers in Philly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Time was, any house where George Washington lived or visited was sacred ground. \u201cGeorge Washington slept here\u201d is a promotional slogan more than a few roadside inns have used to punch up their business. A 1942 movie starring Jack Benny and Ann Sheridan was based on the theme; it depicted a couple who purchased \u201ca dilapidated house in the countryside where George Washington was once rumored to have slept\u201d \u2013 thinking the connection would make them rich, according to Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>.
Those times, seemingly, are gone. A wall built on the site of the Presidents House in Philadelphia, a block away from Independence Hall, has become a hot spot, and not because the Father of Our Country lived there during his presidency. Rather, it has become a center of controversy because of signs that placed emphasis on the fact the nation\u2019s first president owned slaves.
\u201cBecause he had brought several slaves north to live in the Presidents House, National Park Service signs had characterized his actions as \u2018deplorable,\u2019 \u2018profoundly disturbing,\u2019 and having \u2018mocked the nation\u2019s pretense to be a beacon of liberty,\u2019\u201d Jeffrey Anderson wrote in National Review magazine<\/a> May 26. \u201cThose signs, produced during the Obama presidency, accused Washington and other founders of \u2018injustice\u2019 and \u2018immorality.\u2019\u201d\u00a0
The signs, as we noted in a Feb. 13 editorial<\/a>, were strongly opinionated but not inaccurate. Mr. Anderson, who visited the site while preparing an essay for the Claremont Review of Books, wrote: \u201cThe site essentially ignored the watershed events that took place there during America\u2019s first two presidencies, and it discussed slavery without any nuance or even-handedness. In the left\u2019s simplistic oppressor-versus-oppressed narrative, the \u2018Father of His Country\u2019 was an oppressor \u2013 meriting condemnation, not celebration.\u201d
President Trump\u2019s administration proceeded to tear down the signs. The president described them as \u201cdemeaning (to) our brave Founding Fathers who set the brilliant road map for the greatest country in the world.\u201d Mr. Trump was aware, of course, that large throngs of Americans and foreign visitors will converge on Philadelphia in July to celebrate the nation\u2019s 250th birthday. It\u2019s understandable that he wanted to deliver a more positive message.
With Independence Day a month away, the status and the message of Independence Park, where the Presidents House stood until 1832, remains in doubt. That\u2019s because the city of Philadelphia sued the National Parks Service for removing the signs, and a federal court ordered them restored. Some were put back up, but Mr. Trump\u2019s administration filed an appeal, and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay, \u201cordering that no further signs be hung until that court hears oral arguments on June 2,\u201d Mr. Anderson wrote. \u201cThat court\u2019s verdict will determine whether the excellent and attractive replacement signs that the Park Service has produced \u2013 but hasn\u2019t yet been allowed to hang \u2013 will greet visitors on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence this July 4, or whether they\u2019ll see signs condemning the man most responsible for winning that independence.\u201d
Our Feb. 13 editorial found fault with the administration for pulling down the signs, asserting \u201cThe urge to scrub away people, deeds and events we\u2019d rather forget should be resisted, always.\u201d Yet the point raised by Mr. Anderson is also valid. He noted the new signs devised by the NPS have not been installed, pending a court ruling.
Why not present both perspectives? The American heart is big enough to honor good men and women while acknowledging some of what they did was less than good, even \u201cdeplorable,\u201d by modern standards. Instead, we are duty bound to recognize that much of what our leaders do today, with our tacit or even enthusiastic acceptance, will be seen by future generations with the same shock and dismay we feel when learning our ancestors committed acts we view as disreputable. Our understanding of our country\u2019s history demands nothing less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Time was, any house where George Washington lived or visited was sacred ground. \u201cGeorge Washington slept here\u201d is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,30294],"class_list":["post-206748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-republican-american"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}