Public opinion still carries a lot of weight in this country – and the action of Congress and President Ford in ordering the observance of Veterans Day shifted back to Nov. 11 is a good example.
In 1968 Congress made a number of holiday shifts in order to create more Monday holidays and “long holiday weekends.” At that time, Veterans Day was shifted to the fourth Monday in October.
Oklahoma was the only state at the time refusing to make Veterans Day a Monday holiday.
Since then, however, war veterans organizations across the country have demonstrated their displeasure over the changing of Veterans Day from its traditional Nov. 11 date marking the day the World War I Armistice was signed “on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” in 1918.
Their concerted drive to have the original date restored fell on ears of many influential officials. As a result, 45 states have re-adopted Nov. 11 by individual action, mostly through state legislative measures.
The U.S. Senate and House, conceding the October date simply wasn’t being received by the folks the holiday is intended to honor, have passed a measure restoring Nov. 11 as Veterans Day – and President Ford has signed the legislation into law.
However, the bill doesn’t become effective until Jan. 1, 1978.
Veterans of Utah obviously won’t wait for the 1978 date. As in recent years they are expected to continue ignoring the decreed fourth Monday of October.
Provo had one of the state’s important Veterans Day observances last Tuesday, Nov. 11, with a program, military salute, and luncheon at the Eldred Center sponsored by the Veterans Council comprising the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, and Veterans of World War I.
There were similar observances elsewhere in the state.
In Congress’ recent action rescheduling the holiday on its former date, the legislators on Capital Hill are recognizing the desires of the war veterans, as one veterans service director said: “Washington finally is seeing the light.”
In any event, holidays are for the people and if the citizenry doesn’t like the alignment set up by Washington, they should make their wishes known.
The socalled “Monday Holiday Bills” do exactly what they were meant to do – create long holiday weekends. It is easy for tl1e true meaning of a holiday to become lost in the shuffle of travel and commercialism under such a setup.
This we should never allow to happen. The Herald commends the veterans for standing up for their convictions in connection with their day.