Library Lincoln

There are more Abraham Lincoln images in Gettysburg than you can shake a stick at. This statue on Baltimore Street by the Adams County Public Library rises above the text of the Gettysburg Address. While I’m not so keen on the overly oratorial pose sculptor Stanley J. Watts placed him in with the outstretched arm, there is something about the rest of his figure that feels right to me. The location feels right, too. The library is a place of welcome for all, a place of information, questions and stories. At a local People’s Town Hall event on May 3, both PA Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta and U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean mentioned the Gettysburg Address in their remarks. They are each enamored by the writing and the evergreen truth of it.

Zoom in to the corner of the sheet Lincoln holds. The sticker is for Tradeoffs. 

Tradeoffs covers health policy news in a way that is accessible and sharp. I cannot put words into Lincoln’s mouth, but I think he would have liked this nonprofit organization and its podcast episodes. Lincoln had the maturity to let his views evolve. He was a policy wonk. Lincoln paid attention to the lived reality of others. He personally suffered serious injuries and infectious disease (including two rounds of malaria). Public health was no abstraction. He labored to communicate so that the result was effortless. I removed the sticker with the Tradeoffs logo. The moment was one of solidarity. This drive for the wellbeing of an entire population does not change through time.