Prayer, government a 2-century tradition

Prayer has been an integral part of governmental deliberations and events throughout the history of the United States.

After four or five weeks of frustrating discussion in the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin called a timeout. He recommended that when the delegates reconvened that they should begin each day with prayer asking God for the wisdom that they needed. Franklin also suggested that they should ask the clergy in Philadelphia to offer these prayers.

Two years later George Washington prayed during his inauguration that God would keep and protect the infant country. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt led our nation in prayer on the radio after Pearl Harbor and on D-Day. The last time I checked on C-SPAN, we still had chaplains or invited clergy opening each session of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives asking God to bless the work that the members were to undertake that day.

I hope that the Wheaton City Council will not be forced to abandon the invoking of God's presence at their meetings, a part of American life and legislation for more than two centuries.

Glenn F. Arnold

Wheaton