Malcolm Cutchins: King, Lee knew best how to handle issues

This past Monday’s official holiday designation is “Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert E. Lee Day” in honor of two men who battled in different ways; one for his race, one for his country, both for important principles.
King would have been 80 this year. His more recent life has been well documented. Lee died 139 years ago, more revered in his later life even by those in the North, but less understood by people today.

One well-known memorial to General Lee is in Stone Mountain, Ga. The Stone Mountain carving is quite spectacular including Lee and his horse, Traveler, and Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson and their horses. For years, the actual mountain carving has “come alive” each summer evening between Memorial Day and Labor Day during the very popular laser show at Stone Mountain Park when the laser-tracing of the sculpture “gallops” off the side of the mountain.

One way that we can bring people “alive” from the past is examine what they had to say and to weigh the impact of their words in light of history.

How significant for today that King emphasized the importance of judging individuals by the “content of their character.” (Could it be that now too many judge men primarily by their rhetoric and celebrity status?) King noted that the church, should be “neither master nor the servant of the state,” but he noted that it still needs to be “the conscience of the state,” an idea in stark contrast to those who strive relentlessly to promote a God-less society.

We continue to see the profound truth of King’s words, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,”

Lee stressed “duty,” concluding that everyone should “Do your duty in all things ... You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less.” These words are inscribed beneath Lee’s bust in “The Hall of Fame for Great Americans” (at the former campus of New York University). This was the country’s very first Hall of Fame that “was conceived in an era when fame had not yet morphed into celebrity.”

Lee stressed, “You cannot be a true man until you learn to obey.” And as president of Washington College (now Washington & Lee), he ruled that “…every student must be a gentleman.”
Lee, along with Booker T. Washington and six others, are profiled in “The Pillars of Leadership” by David J. Vaughan (2000). Lee’s early life could hardly have been more difficult, having to care for an invalid mother and an invalid wife. He could easily have used these circumstances as excuses for failure later in life.

The times and circumstances that both King and Lee faced were very severe, much harsher than those that almost any of us face in the present day. As we struggle with today’s problems and opportunities, the importance of applying proper principles not just the fads of the day would be the best legacy with which we could honor them.

Dr. Malcolm Cutchins is an emeritus professor of engineering of Auburn University and writes a weekly column for The Opelika-Auburn News.