Time to Whig Out! The Glorious Rants of the U. S. Whig Party!

by Tom Yamaguchi

Happy 236th birthday to William Henry Harrison, our country's greatest President! Harrison was born on February 9, 1773 on Berkeley Plantation, VA and elected in 1840 as the ninth President, the oldest elected to that office until Ronald Reagan. After three hours of sitting on his horse during his inaugural parade, Harrison gave an hour and forty-five minute long inaugural address while standing in a cold wind and not wearing a hat or coat. Later that night, he made appearances at three inaugural balls. He ended up catching a cold, which later turned to pneumonia. 

One month later, Harrison died without having done much of anything as President. Since he didn’t have much of a presidential record for us to complain about, our reformed Whig Party decided that he was our Greatest President. This discovery inspired us to commemorate the 203rd birthday of Harrison with a party in Berkeley, CA in February 1976. Notices were sent out to the media of this important event that coincided with the year of the U.S. bicentennial. One notice was sent to Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle. Caen pioneered what has become known as "three dot journalism." Getting mentioned in his column was the noble pursuit of many would be activists, performers, artists, writers, and others who clamored for their well-deserved 15 minutes of fame. The birthday party was not mentioned in Caen's column, at least not directly. Several days after, Caen mentioned Millard Fillmore who has a street named for him in San Francisco. "Fillmore was a Whig," wrote Caen, "and what a party that was." That was probably the best publicity we received.

After spending almost 25 years praising William Henry Harrison’s presidential record, we decided to actually investigate the official records of his administration. In 1897, the government Printing Office issued a multi-volume set of books entitled “Messages and Papers of the American Presidents,” and we found a cheap, used copy of the volume we wanted in a bookstore. William Henry Harrison’s administration was covered in the 1841-1849 volume, which published his Special Message withdrawing all pending nominations from the Senate on March 5, 1841. It also printed his March 17 Proclamation calling for Congress to come into an extraordinary session on May 31 to address the nation’s debts. Congress did come into session on that date, although Harrison had been dead for almost two months at that point. The book also reprints his lengthy inaugural address and provides a listing of the participants in the funeral procession. 

Our research revealed that Harrison had actually directed the greatest and most honorable order ever issued by an American President. This order has been covered up for over 100 years. Harrison had directed Secretary of State Daniel Webster to issue a circular letter to all the departments of the federal government to request that all Federal Government employees be informed that the President would consider it as ground for dismissal from office the giving or receiving of any campaign contribution by any Federal Government employee. In short, give or receive a campaign donation and you lose your government job. Can you imagine President Obama issuing such an order?

The Whig Party revives the values of Old Tippecanoe, the Hard Cider and Log Cabin candidate. During Harrison's time, the Whigs were composed of individuals who had very little in common. In fact, there was only one position they could agree on. They all hated Andrew Jackson. In keeping with that tradition, our Whig Party hates Andrew Jackson, too. We are incensed by the sight of the Evil Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill. If you want to rid yourself of Jackson's corrupting influence on your wallet, you may send all those disgusting pictures of Jackson to the U.S. Whig Party, and we will recycle them for you.

Whig Party Demands Re-Affirmative Action

After the election of Millard Fillmore, the original Whig Party fell apart and was replaced by the secret Know Nothings. We maintain the Know Nothing tradition by being a secret political party and promoting our “top secret” political demands. One of our foremost demands is to have broadcast licenses be non-saleable and non-renewable. The licenses have to be awarded by randomly selected juries. This demand alone guarantees we will receive no coverage by the broadcast media and ensures our status as a secret political party. Our next demand is that those awarded licenses must perform one month of “Re-Affirmative Action!” for every year they hold their licenses. What is “Re-Affirmative Action!” you may ask?

We believe that every Judge, every elected official, every holder of a television or radio broadcasting license, and a sundry list of other officials who enjoy certain rewards as a result of their position should be required to serve one month in a randomly selected jail or prison for every year they hold their position. The Constitution of the United States uses the term “Good Behavior” as the criteria that specifies the length for judicial terms, with the term “Good Behavior” being otherwise undefined. We want Congress to pass a law that requires the yearly performance of “Re-Affirmative Action!” to be a necessary component of “Good Behavior.” Courts and trials would be unnecessary because the performance of one’s “Re-Affirmative Action!” duties would merely be yet another administrative requirement necessary for holding the office, position, or license. We also think all lawyers should be required to perform “Re-Affirmative Action!” for two weeks for each year they are licensed to be lawyers.

Whigs contend that our leaders are junkies, strung out on campaign contributions. They often perform amazing acts of political prostitution in order to obtain more contributions. Since our laws have traditionally dealt with social problems by throwing junkies and prostitutes in jail, we believe that throwing political junkies and prostitutes in jail through the performance of “Re-Affirmative Action!” would be a social improvement.

Let us then celebrate the presidency of William Henry Harrison. If not for a fatal case of pneumonia, he would have gone down in history as just another militaristic, Indian-killing, asshole, son-of-a-bitch. Join us in a toast of hard cider and a round of stirring campaign songs.

Rock-a-bye Baby,

Daddy's a Whig.

Before he comes home, hard cider he'll swig.

And then become tipsy and over he'll fall.

And down will come Daddy, Tip, Tyler, and all.

Send a stamped, self-addressed #10 envelope to P.O. Box 4210, Berkeley, CA 94704 if you want to receive a leaflet. The Whig Party cheerfully embezzles all contributions. Since we are a secretive political party, we usually don't respond to e-mail sent to uswhigparty@yahoo.com, but you can try anyway. In fact, we are quite suspicious of all communications. They don't call us Know Nothings for nothing.