Douglas Rooks
| Columnist
There will be at least one question on the ballot Nov. 5 that’s simple, clear and easily understood. I refer to Question 5, asking whether Mainers approve of the new state flag design.
“New” is a slight misnomer because the design actually returns to the North star and white pine flag that was official from 1901-09, when it was replaced with the current model, the fisher-farmer duo that whatever happens will still be the state’s “great seal.”
Replacing the flag seemed quixotic when it was first proposed by former Rep. Sean Paulhus back in 2021. It garnered few votes the first time out, yet all over the state people were flying the pine tree, while the official flag is present mostly at official events and auditorium stages.
When the bill returned in 2023 it attracted far more support yet still seemed likely to fall short. Then Sen. Eric Brakey (R-Auburn) added an amendment requiring a referendum that November, and it sneaked through both House and Senate.
There were no Republican “yeas” in the House, and just two in the Senate, yet it appeared headed for the ballot. Then Gov. Janet Mills declined to sign the bill, pushing its effective date past the off-off-year election, meaning it couldn’t appear until 2024.
Enter Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, with a plan. Independently of the flag controversy, Bellows pushed for a new license plate, the first in 25 years. License plates, like flags, can be fraught issues.
Bellows proposed a different “star and pine tree” and presented it to the Legislature’s Transportation Committee, not ordinarily enamored of new ideas. Yet she won over Democrats and Republicans by first demonstrating why a new license plate was needed.
She showed a plate from a Presque Isle vehicle so sand-blasted by the elements there was virtually no paint left. And, countering the usual concerns about cost, she said it could be absorbed within already appropriated money. The committee unanimously approved.
And so the new plates will roll out next year, gradually replacing the familiar chickadee-and-pine-tassel that served so well for a quarter century. If you really don’t like the pine tree, you can get a plate with nothing except numbers; the dozens of specialty plate will of course continue to be issued.
It can’t be said the flag controversy has been resolved nearly as smoothly, though Bellows tried there too.
She proposed a new bill that would have put off the referendum to 2026, providing a cooling off period and time for a committee to go to work. It passed, but was among 35 bills lawmakers sent to the governor moments before adjournment, a highly unusual procedure.
Mills refused to act on any of the 35, so the referendum reverted to 2024, with a campaign amid another presidential election resembling a national identity crisis.
The one figure who emerged from the adjournment train wreck with reputation enhanced was Bellows. However things go in November, we’ll have a new license plate that communicates just as effectively with the outside world, or even more so, than a flag.
One presumes voters will line up on Question 5 the same way lawmakers did, but maybe not.
There are sound arguments for restoring the 1901 flag. The farmer-fisher flag looks a whole lot like a dozen other state flags, including New Hampshire’s.
It would be good to know why the change was made in the first place, but those reasons are unfortunately lost in the mists of legislative time.
Flag design involves vivid and uncomplicated imagery – think of the American flag itself – and by that standard the Pine Tree Flag is superior. And since it came first, it qualifies as meeting poet Robert Frost’s goal to “find old ways to be new.”
The specific design chosen also shows nuance. The flag so many are flying has a highly stylized conifer on it.
To the degree it resembles any living tree, it’s more likely a fir or spruce, and certainly not Maine’s majestic white pine, the official state tree.
And while one also wishes we still had one of the titans of the North Woods, they were all cut down, primarily the “King’s masts” for warships in colonial days. Today, the state champion white pine grows in Sumner, and stands 105 feet above the forest floor.
It’s appropriately represented in the “naturalistic” design chosen by Bellows, by Gardiner artist-designer Adam Lemire. There’s no mistaking it for any tree other than a white pine.
As a symbol for Maine, it’s every bit as powerful as Mt. Katahdin. There may be less common ground under us than we’d like, but perhaps we can agree on that.
Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor, columnist and reporter since 1984. He is the author of four books, most recently a biography of U.S. Chief Justice Melville Fuller, and welcomes comment at drooks@tds.net
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Publish date : 2024-08-08 22:08:00
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