Try a different Wilson

In the movie “1776,” Declaration of Independence signer James Wilson casts his colony’s deciding vote when his fellow delegates are deadlocked, whereupon the Continental Congress passes the resolution for independence. He says he doesn’t want to be remembered as the one who prevented independence with his nay vote.

Unlikely as that account seems, Wilson did go down in history as one of five signers of both the Declaration and the U.S. Constitution. He also helped frame the first draft of the Constitution and later became one of the original members of the first U.S. Supreme Court.

If it’s decided the name Woodrow Wilson should be expunged from our city’s elementary school, we should do as King County did with its name three decades ago. It was originally named after slave-holding Vice President William R.D. King (before that, a U.S. senator who argued in Congress against the creation of the Oregon Territory, which would add another western “free” territory that outlawed slavery).

As in the King case, which the county renamed for Martin Luther King Jr., Wilson School would just have a new namesake. Sorry, Seahawks fans, Russell Wilson will have to wait awhile longer to have any schools with his name.

Dale Roloff

Spokane