It’s a national pastime. It makes them seem down-to-earth.
What is it? Making fun of our nation’s presidents. That’s something that most citizens do at times, not just comics. With Presidents Day and George Washington’s birthday back-to-back this year, it is an especially appropriate time for telling jokes at our 46 presidents’ expenses.
We expect to see wacky ads and commercials with images of our presidents to go along with all-year-round gags like the Washington Nationals’ Racing Presidents. One recent ad that used George Washington to sell carpeting and tile was labeled “e floribus unum.”
But did Washington himself — the formal, stuffy, rarely smiling Revolutionary War hero, gentleman farmer and first U.S. president under the Constitution — have a sense of humor? According to fellow Founder and fourth chief executive James Madison, “The story so often repeated of his (Washington’s) never laughing … is wholly untrue. ... He was particularly pleased with the jokes, good humor, and hilarity of his companions.”
During the American Revolution, Washington’s humor relieved the pressure that he and his compatriots felt about the predicament they faced: Win or die. Jason Scott of Cowley College relays one such funny incident, which took place during the dramatic 1776 Christmas night crossing of the Delaware: As he was getting into the same boat with rotund Gen. Henry Knox, Washington directed Knox to move his behind lest the boat be swamped. All who heard the exchange roared with laughter, including Knox, and the exchange was said to lift the morale of troops involved in the daring Trenton raid. Of course, Washington was often the butt of jokes by his charges, demonstrating that he could make light of himself.
After the war, Washington’s humor was also on display. One example comes from Washington Irving’s biography of GW. As friend John Marshall and nephew Bushrod Washington attempted to change clothes after a long trek to Mount Vernon, they opened an accompanying trunk, only to discover that they had grabbed the wrong trunk at their previous stop. Washington, who witnessed the encounter, rolled on the ground with glee at the spectacle.
Washington’s step-granddaughter, Nelly Custis, once observed that she had made GW laugh “most heartily from sympathy with my joyous and extravagant spirit.”
Even later chief executive Abraham Lincoln — famous for his storytelling and jokes, among other talents — got in the act. He loved to tell the episode about Ethan Allen using an outhouse in Britain after the American Revolution, where someone had placed a picture of Washington. When asked what he thought of same, Allen commented that it was a good idea, since “nothing … will make an Englishman s--- so quick as the sight of General Washington.”
According to essayist Nick DeLuca, “you can tell a lot about a person by what makes them laugh. You can also tell a lot about a person by how they make others laugh.” For George Washington, the solemn was balanced with the silly, even though we don’t hear or read much about the latter stories. It makes him one of us.
Dr. Samuel B. Hoff is George Washington Distinguished Professor Emeritus of history and political science at Delaware State University. He has taught and published extensively on the founding era of American history.
