Mono Monday: Traditional

Today we toured the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York.  FDR’s library was the first presidential library and since that time it has become traditional for a president to build one at the end of their term(s) of office to house all their presidential papers. 

It can certainly be said that in a free society it is traditional to poke fun at elected officials and we saw evidence of that during our tour.  This is a “paper maché depiction of FDR as the Great Sphinx of Giza which was created as a humorous commentary on his refusal to say whether he would run for a third term in 1940.  It was the centerpiece for a satirical skit at the traditional, annual dinner of the Gridiron Club ( an organization of White House Press Correspondents) which FDR attended as the guest of honor in 1939.”  FDR so loved the sculpture that he had it shipped to his library.  As we all know, he did run for a third term as well as a fourth which was certainly not traditional and had never been done before.  After his death, congress immediately passed the 22 amendment which limits presidential terms to two, making it law rather than just tradition.
 
Although it is hard to tell,  this is really quite a large sculpture and the case in which it is housed took up an entire wall.