This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

I am reminded of a teenage stunt I pulled about 44 years ago. During the summers of Watergate, when everybody was Politically Aware.

I took the money lines from the Declaration of Independence, the part that says,

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."

typed it up on plain paper and made it into a petition that I and a friend asked people to sign as they were passing by a local supermarket. We probably approached about 100 people. Maybe half signed it. Someone thought it was communist propaganda. Somebody thought it was Scripture.

Not one person recognized it for what it was.

Some things never change.

— Some thought NPR tweeted 'propaganda.' It was the Declaration of Independence. — Amy B. Wang | The Washington Post

"For about 20 minutes Tuesday, NPR traveled back to 1776.

"To echo its 29-year on-air tradition,the public radio network's main Twitter account tweeted out the Declaration of Independence, line by line.

"There — in 113 consecutive posts, in 140-character increments — was the text of the treasured founding document of the United States, from its soaring opening to its searing indictments of King George III's "absolute tyranny" to its very last signature.

"Who could have taken issue with such a patriotic exercise, done in honor of the nation's birthday?

"Quite a few people, it turned out. ...

" ... The blowback increased when the tweets reached the portion of the Declaration that outlined, in unsparing detail, all the ways Britain's King George III had wronged the then-colonies.

" 'He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers,' read one line of the document.

" 'A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people,' read another.

"Some people — presumably still in the dark about NPR's July Fourth exercise — assumed those lines were references to President Trump and the current administration. ..."

And, shoot, I thought I was doing something original. Turns out a guy in Wisconsin did a very similar thing in another politically charged time, 1951

— 'An old commie trick': Conservatives getting 'triggered' by the Declaration of Independence is nothing new — Travis Gettys | Raw Story

" ... Legendary Wisconsin journalist John Patrick Hunter was a freshly hired reporter for The Capital Times in 1951, when his city editor asked him to dream up a Fourth of July story, the newspaper recalled half a century later...

" ... 'There was a copy of the Declaration of Independence on the wall in the city room,' Hunter said 50 years later. 'I went by and saw it and thought, this is real revolutionary. I wonder if I could get people to sign it now.' ...

" ... The reporter typed up the Declaration's preamble, along with six of the 10 amendments that make up the Bill of Rights, and added the 15th Amendment prohibiting racist laws against voting.

"Hunter put those foundational American documents into petition form and canvassed 112 people at Madison's Independence Day celebration, but found only one person — insurance agent Wentworth Millar — willing to sign off. ..."

" ... None of the others Hunter approached would sign — and 20 of them accused Hunter of being a communist ..."

Everybody else has the story today. The big difference being the choice of words in the headlines, from "offended" to "freak out" to "conniption fit."

— NPR Tweeted The Declaration Of Independence And Some Trump Supporters Were Offended — Julia Reinstein | BuzzFeed

— Trump supporters freak over NPR's Declaration of Independence tweets — Morgan Conley | Vice News

— People got really mad at NPR for tweeting the Declaration of Independence — Christian Holub | Entertainment Weekly

— Trump fans offended by NPR's Declaration of Independence tweets — Constance Gibbs | New York Daily News

— Trump Fans Throw a Conniption Fit After NPR Tweets out the Declaration of Independence — Elizabeth Preza | Raw Story

Backers accused "Morning Edition" of inciting a revolution. You can't make this up.

While we're reflecting on our history, here's mine from the July 4 Tribune:

— This Independence Day, reflect on how little we resemble our founders — Salt Lake Tribune Editorial

And mine from the July 4, 1991 — and July 7, 2017 — issue of the Salina Journal

— Meaning of day missed — Salina Journal Editorial

" ... The American holiday is not the day we declared our independence, the day we won it, or the day we put it to use. It is the day we explained it.

"What other holiday can say the same? It is as if the primary holiday of Christianity were not Christmas or Easter, but the day of the Sermon on the Mount. ..."