When tradition faces off against the almighty buck, smart gamblers put their money on the money. Consider the Uniform Holiday Act of 1968, under which Congress decided that George Washington’s face on the dollar bill trumps George Washington’s birthday. The act provided that beginning in 1971, Memorial Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, and Washington’s Birthday (later demoted to the beloved “Presidents’ Day”) were to fall only on happy Mondays.
For years, Florida Senator George A. Smathers, the smarmy playboy best known as JFK’s sidekick in the pursuit of venereal happiness, had been the Braveheart of the three-day weekend. The eminently practical Smathers even wanted to junk Thanksgiving Thursday and bid bye-bye to the Fourth of July.
The Monday holiday bill found its weightiest ally in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The chamber’s arguments for uprooting the old holidays were no more elevated than the bottom line:
* It would reduce absenteeism—no more calling in sick on Friday after getting smashed on a Memorial Day Thursday.
* Production would not experience midweek disruptions.
* Travel-dependent industries would prosper.
When the bill came to the House floor in May 1968, shrewd supporters had tacked on a provision establishing Columbus Day as a national holiday. This ensured the measure’s passage, despite the futile efforts of Rep. Edward Derwinski (R-IL) to rename Columbus Day “Discoverers of America Day” as a way to honor Polish explorer Jan z Kolna and “put an end to the Polish jokes which have swept the country.” (Lech Walesa eventually did that.)
The Daughters of the American Revolution “vigorously protest[ed] this downgrading of our national heroes,” but the white-haired bluebloods were no match for Chamber of Commerce greenbacks. Neither was the ramshackle Lord’s Day Alliance, whose director complained, “Most ministers like long holidays about as much as they do the devil. The choir, ushers, Sunday School teachers, and the whole congregation join the mass exodus.”
