The Great 1956 PCHS Presidential Debate

SOMETIMES GREAT IDEAS HAVE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES !


Prior to the 1956 Presidential Election between President Dwight Eisenhower (R) and challenger Adlai Stevenson (D), Principal Ira Whitakler called an assembly and wanted students to speak in favor of their choice for president.


Note: I must give a couple of accounts from my own experience that preceded the Great Debate by many years:


1. I was nine or ten years old and was walking with my father from our house that we shared with the Fredericks to what we called the "Back Field" To this day, I can take you to the exact spot where I asked my father this question: "Dad, what is the Government?" I didn't understand his answer then. But he said, "In this country, the Government is the people." Years later, I understood his answer very, very well. In fact, I would spend 20 years of my life in the military "defending the Constitution of The United States against all enemies foreign and domestic."


2. At 12 years of age my grandfather in Kentucky asked me to join him on the porch swing. He told me I was old enough to understand the world of politics. He said, "Son, the Republicans believe in the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer!" The legendary Country and Western singer Bob Wills said in one of his songs, "Time changes everything." I surely believe that includes political party preferences.


Back to the debate: Several speakers were lined up, mostly seniors, and the speeches were polite and civil at the start. I sat in amazement as I heard students, I knew very well, give opinions that obviously had been learned at home. For an instant, I considered getting in line to speak. But then it happened. 


I don't know who started it but the rhetoric quickly changed and speakers started challenging each other. What could have been a good civics lesson degenerated into loud name calling and accusations that were way off the intended purpose of the debate. The most memorable comment, at least for me, was the bold statement by a heated Stevenson supporter that it was a Republican, Abe Lincoln, that gave us the Civil War! (Wow! I thought the Civil War was about slavery and it was President Lincoln that freed the slaves!)


It was at this point, about 20 minutes into the Great Debate, when Principal Ira Whitaker stepped in and said the assembly was over and students were to return to their normal classes. I never heard anyone speak of politics again, at least in public.