Declaring our independence

To the editor:

Thank you for publishing the Declaration of Independence in the July 7 issue of The Riverdale Press.

As I recall, historically, each year The Press has published the Declaration of Independence in its Thursday issue immediately preceding the July 4 national holiday. This year, that Thursday was June 30, and the declaration of our independence was not on the editorial page.

I was disappointed, perturbed, almost angry. I thought, perhaps, that recent changes in editorial board personnel were changing the direction of the paper. I was going to write a letter of complaint, but decided to wait until yesterday, July 7.

Relief! Here was our precious Declaration of Independence.

You may ask why I consider it so important to publish this document in our local newspaper every year. After all, it can easily be read online or in books, if anyone has books anymore.

When I read the Declaration of Independence in newsprint, in my local weekly newspaper, I feel as if I’m getting the news the way the Colonists would have gotten it, straight from the printing presses of 1776. It is so refreshing to read the words, the step-by-step logic that explained the reasoning behind the need to separate the colonies from a tyrannical monarchy.

Oh, that we can hold onto those incentives, those imperatives, those ideals to keep us separate from a 21st century would-be dictator “whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

Leslie Hogan