In the Bible's New Testament, Jesus tells a parable about a man who hires laborers for his vineyard at the start of the day. Four more times during that day -- in the third, sixth, ninth and, finally, 11th hour -- the man hires additional laborers for the promise of a fair wage.
When the day is done, the landowner pays the workers. To the chagrin of those he hired first -- the ones who had worked all day -- the man compensates all the workers in exactly the same way. The all-day laborers were paid a wage typical of a day's pay, a rate none could argue was unjust. But when those workers saw that all the others who had been hired later in the day were given the same pay, they grumbled out it.
What’s the point?
Baxter County finally made some progress by adopting the observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as a county holiday.
Among various interpretations of this parable comes one that suggests those hired late in the day are deserving of some derision. After all, they were late to the fields and hadn't done anywhere near the amount of work done by the workers hired earlier. The landowner, however, was glad to pay each group what he had pledged, for he had received what he had wanted out of all of them.
In a similar context, it is perhaps easy to experience a little frustration with Baxter County here in Arkansas. It became Arkansas' 66th county in 1873, named for the state's 10th governor. It's home to Bull Shoals Lake and Norfork Lake. Its county seat is Mountain Home.
And its most recent claim to fame -- infamy? -- is, according to one of its justices of the peace, that it's the 75th and final county in the state of Arkansas to adopt as an official county holiday the annual observance of the birth of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
On Dec. 5, the Baxter County Quorum Court passed an ordinance, on its third reading in three months, by an 11-0 vote to make the birthday of the slain civil rights leader a paid holiday for county employees.
The change, in part, is just a practical matter. County employees who worked had little capacity to get much done because a lot of other counties and cities, and many businesses, shut down for the observance.
"It's got nothing to do with whether we like or dislike Martin Luther King. It's strictly for the efficiency of the county," argued Edna Fusco, a justice of the peace from Mountain Home.
Now, we're pretty sure even Fusco doesn't entirely believe that statement. Perhaps it's what one says when trying to fend off some point of opposition to a proposal. Make it practical. Make it not about what it's really about. No doubt the measure was about giving workers a 10th paid holiday as a form of benefit, but was there any inkling that perhaps the holiday actually deserved to be recognized for who it honors?
The situation leaves us feeling like one of those workers who labored in the vineyard all day. It's tough to give Baxter County credit for doing the right thing when they've waited so long to do it and so many cities, counties and states long ago recognized the observance. Arkansas first recognized the King holiday in 1985.
Tink Albright, a Baxter County justice of the peace from Gassville, acknowledged what most Arkansans will recognize as true, that the King holiday "should have been added a long time ago."
"It'll be a good thing," she said. "I hate that we're last. I'd like to be in the forefront of things, but at least we're getting it done."
At least.
"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right," once said a wise man for whom most people have observed a holiday.
So let's give Baxter County credit for the work it's done, even if they were quite late in joining in the labor. Welcome to the 21st century.
Commentary on 12/16/2017