AMERICA AT 250 AND ODA AT 160
This year, we are celebrating two significant anniversaries. As has been much hyped, America is celebrating its Semiquincentennial in 2026. Perhaps somewhat less noticed is that the Ohio Dental Association is celebrating its 160th anniversary in 2026. Both are truly worth celebrating. This column is the first installment of a two-part series regarding these significant anniversaries. I will discuss America’s 250th anniversary in this column and the ODA’s 160th anniversary next month.
I was a young boy (11 years old) when America celebrated its Bicentennial in 1976 but remember it like it was yesterday. My father – the son of Polish immigrants – never earned a college degree and worked in a factory all of his life. But he was so proud to be an American. We lived modestly so our way of celebrating wasn’t to travel to some exotic location or go to some fancy restaurant for dinner. We celebrated in the most American way – we had all of the neighbors over for a barbecue in our tiny backyard. I remember my Dad hung American flags everywhere – in the yard, on the house, on the garage – everywhere.
Dad capped the day off with a brief fireworks show that had my Mom fearing he was going to set the neighborhood on fire because the houses were so close together. It seemed like a wave of patriotism swept over the country as we celebrated our country’s 200th birthday.
It is tempting to say those were simpler times. Today, many of our conversations are so often marred by divisive rhetoric and political division that some suggest we aren’t capable of joining together to celebrate our country’s Semiquincentennial as a unified nation.
But I am not sure that is so true. In 1976, our country was just emerging from the divisive Vietnam War. President Gerald Ford had taken office after Richard Nixon’s resignation and took the controversial step to pardon Nixon to allow the country to move on and heal from Watergate and other scandals. And in the summer of 1976, we were in the middle of a presidential campaign as Ford was facing Jimmy Carter in the November election. But somehow – at least as I remember it – Americans were able to put aside their differences and remember what is good about our country.
Taking time to remember the good things does not mean that America is perfect. No, far from it. For example, slavery and subsequent racial strife are stains on American history that eventually led to the Civil War; Reconstruction, including passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution; and the Civil Rights Movement. And the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – which gave women the right to vote – did not pass until 1920, and discrimination against women in the workplace and in education prevailed for decades after that.
Of course, slavery and racial and gender discrimination are not unique to America or the West. Slavery and poor treatment of women have existed throughout world history and still exist today in some places in the world and in certain cultures.
But it is also undeniable that significant advancement has been made in America for Blacks and women. In 1960, the percent of Black Americans that met the definition of being in poverty stood at more than 50%. In 2024, that rate was less than 20%. In the 1970s, the average annual Black unemployment rate was over 11% but in 2024, the Black unemployment rate was about half (5.5%) that rate. Median Black household income has risen by more than 30% in the last decade and the percent of Black American adults earning college degrees has nearly doubled since 2000.
The improvement for women in America has been even more dramatic. In 1970, 43% of Bachelor’s Degrees conferred by American universities went to women. And women only accounted for 39% of the Master’s Degrees and 10% of the Doctorates awarded in 1970. Today, women account for the majority in all Bachelor’s degrees (58%), Master’s degrees (60%) and doctorates (53%). Most of you are probably aware this trend is present in dental education as well with women now making up the majority of dental school graduates at most American dental schools.
These advancements are positive, but more progress is necessary. While Black Americans are experiencing more freedom and the most positive economic conditions in their history with record low unemployment and poverty rates, and record high income levels and wealth generation, there is still a significant equity gap as Blacks lag behind whites in each of these categories. And while women are earning more and experiencing greater independence than ever, an income gap still exists with women earning about 85% of what men do for similar jobs.
Nonetheless, the progress is positive and undeniable and will continue.
The story of America, however, is so much more than just its history related to slavery and inequality. It is a story about resiliency, rugged individualism and community. It is a story of an experiment in representative democracy that has become the model for the rest of the world. It is a story of free markets and private enterprise that have fostered innovation and growth, igniting prosperity and creating wealth in America and across the globe. It is a story of charity both at home and abroad and compassion for others. It is a story about freedom of expression and religion and the right of American citizens to pursue happiness and the American dream – regardless of their backgrounds.
Let me discuss some of these American stories that are truly worth celebrating.
The American System of Government is the Model for the Rest of the World
The American model of government – a constitutional federal republic – is a representative democracy governed by a written Constitution. In this system, citizens elect representatives to make laws on their behalf, and the federal government’s power is strictly limited by the Constitution’s structure of enumerated powers and of checks and balances in order to protect individual liberties.
Unlike nations built on shared ethnicity or ancestry, the U.S. was founded on a set of universal political principles including freedom, individual liberty, the consent of the governed and limited government. All of this was expressed in the Declaration of Independence and enshrined in the written U.S. Constitution.
For more than 200 years, the American form of government has been viewed as an example for other nations to follow. Across the globe, the United States has long been considered the most stable and prosperous nation.
When the U.S. was founded 250 years ago, there were no democracies like the one America was poised to set up. Traditionally, the predominate forms of government across the globe were monarchies and then totalitarian dictatorships, which rose up in the early 20th century in countries like Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union. However, by the early 1970s more than 20% of the world’s countries had developed democratic governance systems, and today, more than half the countries of the world are classified as democracies. The American experiment has ignited a wave of democracies across the world which has resulted in nearly 2 billion people who are freer and more prosperous than ever before. That is quite a legacy for our American experiment.
America Stands for Freedom Against Tyranny
While America’s role is not to be the world’s policeman, the U.S. stood up to the two greatest threats to individual liberty and freedom in the last century by defeating Nazi Fascism and Soviet Communism.
During the darkest hour of World War II, much of Europe, including Britan and France, faced the real possibility of defeat at the hands of the Axis powers, predominantly Nazi Germany. The German military had invaded and occupied France and engaged in repeated bombing campaigns of Britain. The continent of Europe was in peril. In 1944, American troops landed at Normandy Beach and began a campaign that turned the tide of the war in the European theatre and eventually rid the world of the fascist ideology that threatened freedom and democracy everywhere.
Following World War II, the next primary threat to freedom was the rise of Soviet Communism, which sought to extend its noxious totalitarian ideology across the globe. But America stood strong against communism throughout the Cold War and eventually Soviet Communism ended up in the ash heap of history just as then-President Ronald Reagan predicted in 1982. Former President George H.W. Bush reminded us in 1992 that Communism “didn’t just fall, it was pushed.” And that push came from the United States leading its allies in standing up for freedom and democracy around the world.
America’s leadership led to the demise of the twin evils of fascism and communism which had engaged in mass atrocities, genocide and suppression of the basic human rights of millions of people during the 20th Century. This is another sterling legacy for our great country and one that is well worth celebrating in 2026.
America is the Economic Engine of the World
The American system of government’s protection of private property rights and its commitment to free markets and private enterprise has led to the most significant increase in innovation, economic activity, growth and wealth creation in the history of the world.
Since 1800, the standard of living in America has undergone an unprecedented transformation. Real GDP per capita is now roughly 38 times higher than it was in 1800. Americans have experienced a transition from a primarily agrarian society to a wealthy, industrialized service economy, resulting in vast improvements in income, wealth, life expectancy, and access to basic necessities, including food, clean water, housing and technology.
According to the McKinsey Institute, “Americans created or supported 76 of the 100 most important inventions since 1776, from steamboats to smartphones, from the electrical grid to generative AI.” As economist Cullum Clark recently explained, “America’s economy stands alone. Americans enjoy higher productivity, income and consumption than peers in virtually any other country.”
But America’s economic strength doesn’t just benefit Americans.
According to a report from the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, “By giving foreign nations access to its domestic markets – and pushing other nations to open up even more – the United States has become a key contributor to growth in developing nations.”
The left-leaning Center for American Progress agrees, noting that citizens living in countries that adopt American style democracy and free markets experience more prosperity, better education attainment, better health and life expectancy, greater freedom and better access to the internet, electricity and clean water.
A recent report from the International Monetary Fund puts it this way: America truly is the “economic engine of the world.”
The system America created has led to better lives for its citizens and hundreds of millions of people who live in other countries because we paved the way for the rest of the world to follow us to greater freedom and prosperity.
American Prosperity Benefits All
America and Americans are generous, and that generosity benefits millions of people at home and across the globe. Below are some examples.
The modern era of U.S. foreign aid began after World War II with the so-called Marshall Plan (named after Goerge C. Marshall who served as U.S. secretary of state from 1947 to 1949), where the U.S. invested billions of dollars in rebuilding Europe after the devastation caused by World War II. This investment did more than just rebuild the physical infrastructure of western European countries; it rebuilt their economies making them self-sufficient and created ties that have bound our European allies together for more than 75 years.
U.S. humanitarian aid has also saved millions of lives in Africa over the last three decades by providing millions of dollars’ worth of medicine and health care services to combat HIV/AIDS and address the recent Ebola outbreak.
Private philanthropy in America is just as stunning as the government’s commitment to foreign aid and has also changed the lives of millions of people both here and abroad. According to Giving USA, in 2024, Americans donated more than $592 billion to non-profits, which represents about 2% of U.S. GDP – an astonishing amount. These donations support charities that fund cancer research, college scholarships for students from low-income families, health care for military veterans, job training for displaced workers, support for people impacted by natural disasters, and much more.
The prosperity and generosity of America and Americans and the corresponding impact on humanity at home and abroad is one more reason to celebrate our Semiquincentennial.
Now that I have discussed our country’s 250th anniversary, let me give a brief preview of next month’s column on the ODA’s 160th anniversary. In 1831, French historian and philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville took a nine-month tour of America to observe American society under its new form of governance, including examining social conditions and political institutions. The copious notes he took and his reflections on his visit led to the publication of Tocqueville’s seminal book “Democracy in America.”
One of Tocqueville’s most interesting observations was that “Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all minds constantly unite together. Not only do they have commercial and manufacturing associations in which they take part, but they also have a thousand other types” of associations. He believed that this “art of association” was critical to a successful and thriving free society.
Next month’s column will discuss the history and dynamic impact that Ohio’s dentists have made through their own associations, especially the Ohio Dental Association, which is celebrating its 160th anniversary in 2026.
