Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Letters young people write to US presidents
IN APRIL 2015, former US president Barack Obama received a harsh letter.
“Dear Mr President, my name is Emilia and I am 11 years old and I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I just wanted to tell you that I saw your National Collegiate Athletic Association winners pick and I beat you. You are a great president, just not the best picker.”
The president not only read the letter, he responded. He took the criticism well, agreeing that he didn’t have the best record at picking winners in the annual college basketball tournament.
“I expect big things from you in the years ahead,” Obama wrote.
Kids have been sending letters to US presidents for generations. They include messages of thanks, advice and requests for help.
Sometimes those requests can be dramatic. For example, president Dwight Eisenhower received a request from three teenage girls in 1958.
“We think it’s bad enough you are sending Elvis Presley in the army. But if you cut his sideburns off we will just die,” the teens wrote.
Another request came from a young teenage boy named Fidel Castro. (Does that name ring a bell?) In 1940, he sent a letter to president Franklin D Roosevelt asking for a $10 note because he had never seen American money. That same boy became the leader of Cuba 19 years and with their volunteers, we were able to run an exhibition where later. Unfortunately for him, he never got the $10. You can see many letters written by kids in the public vaults, a permanent exhibit, at the National Archives in Washington, DC. Presidential libraries all over the US also display them.
Miriam Kleiman, programme director for public affairs at the archives, has spent years working on gathering letters from presidential libraries to showcase at the museum.
Kleiman also spent years tracking down the writers of letters to presidents. She said they often disadvantaged kids from the community could feel like they are a part of something bigger.
“Not only did they develop forgot they had written. In 1956, a young boy named John Beaulieu wrote to Eisenhower offering advice that he focus his campaign speeches on lowering taxes. Beaulieu sent the letter in Braille, a raised-dot writing system used by people who are blind.
He got a response. Kleiman
tracked him superheroes through healing art classes, but got to explore a superhero within themselves and be celebrated for this,” said Philander. down in 2004 and invited him to visit his letter at the exhibit. “It is absolutely amazing to think that something I did as a child would get this kind of recognition,” he told Kleiman.
Presidents take time to read through many letters written by concerned citizens. Obama’s staff would give him 10 letters to read each night. The letters that did not make it to his desk typically would get a response from his staff.
In 1993, president Bill Clinton was the first president to have a public email address and a White House website.
This made it easier for citizens across the US to get their letters to him faster. – Washington Post