It was Christmas Eve, and Uncle Sam was in a humbug mood and feeling altogether like a Scrooge.
Day and night, he heard complaints about how the food and home prices were too high and “The People” were barely scraping by.
“Go ask the free market!” he responded with a harrumph.
Besides, he had nothing to spare, what with all those expensive foreign wars draining his coffers and the multitudes clamoring at his borders.
And for those too lazy to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, well, if they were going to expire, best hurry up and do it, and decrease the surplus population for the sake of the environment.
But that night, something peculiar happened, something terrifying and wonderful at the same time.
At first, he thought himself dreaming or that perhaps he had accidentally imbibed an unknown mixture while in San Francisco.
For before him was the ghostly presence of his long-dead partner, Washington.
Not mind you, that place that haunted him daily, but the hallowed personage from whom it derived its name and which it had done so much lately to sully.
It was the great General himself, a white wig and all, standing, or rather floating, now at his bedside.
“George, is that really you?” Sam replied, scarcely trusting his eyes, and then seeing his old friend was burdened by a ponderous iron chain that seemed to go on for miles, added, “And what the Dickens are you carrying?”
“Your debt,” the Founding Father answered coldly.
“My debt?” said Sam, thinking he had large enough ones already; the last thing he needed was another.
“Each link,” continued Washington, “forged from the obligations owed to those Patriots who built our country.”
“Why are you here?” asked Sam.
“To warn you,” said Washington. “Tonight, you will be visited by three ghosts. Take heed of them, or these debts shall never be satisfied. Expect the first at the chime of the clock,” and with that, Washington departed.
As promised (for Washington never lied), the clock chimed, and the first ghost arrived.
The spirit was familiar to Sam again, and he knew him right away— “Jefferson!”
“I am the Ghost of America’s Past,” said the Pen of the Revolution, holding his famous quill, “Come, there is precious time to waste.”
Suddenly, as if by Christmas magic, they were transported to another time and place.
Sam found himself standing alongside the Father of Independence just as his famous Declaration was being signed, with many past friends there too, as if all were still alive.
“Adams! Franklin!” Sam exclaimed, but they could not hear him.
“These are shadows of what was,” explained the ghostly Sage of Monticello, “they cannot see or hear us any more than we may affect them.”
As he watched, Sam felt again the promise of the miraculous new nation being born, fashioned by an unlikely rebel band of farmers and shopkeepers.
Then, however, the scene faded and, in a blink, came a rapid succession of others.
Sam saw the infant nation grow quickly as The People forged bravely ahead with their Manifest Destiny and spread across the vast continent, pioneers taming a vast wilderness.
And there was a younger, more vigorous Sam pitching in!
Towns and communities bursting with civic pride soon sprouted all over the country with good homes filled with strong, vibrant American families flying Old Glory proudly.
How refreshing, thought Sam, to see such patriotism again.
From humble beginnings, the nation grew to become the envy of the world, with modernity and prosperity Made in America.
A gleam of pride twinkled in Sam’s eye, of the kind he had not known for some time.
“We built something truly wonderful,” he remarked to Jefferson, adding, as if to himself, “where did it go?”
Sam then glimpsed an older version of himself and a fatter one, not of his current girth certainly, but well along the path.
Many recognizable Men of Business were with him, and they toasted Sam while stuffing fistfuls of money into his pockets and then placed papers before him, which he eagerly signed.
“Cheap labor,” said one, handing Sam a Bill as he stuffed dollars into his overflowing pockets.
“Free trade,” whispered yet another, doing the same.
“The Business of America is Business!” Sam heard himself proclaim to raucous cheers from the congregated Chamber of Commerce.
Jefferson shook his head and responded, “What of The People? Are they not our Business, too?”
Before Sam could respond, he awoke with a startle and, thinking momentarily that perhaps the nightmare was over, when the clock chimed again, and the second ghost entered.
This spirit was jolly and full, with a broad chest and a hardy constitution, and in his hand was a big wooden stick.
Like the last, Sam recognized him instantly, “Teddy!”
“Bully!” boomed the reply, “I am the Ghost of America’s Present,” and flashing a toothy Rooseveltian grin— “We must be off!”
This time, Sam was transported to a part of the country that, at first, he did not recognize, for it was a forlorn and destitute place forgotten by many.
“Where are we?” asked Sam.
“Surely, you know it?” said Teddy, “Look closely!”
As Sam gazed at the crumbling streets and derelict buildings, the abandoned steel mill standing like a grim memorial, and through the despair hanging in the air, he suddenly remembered.
It was one of those proud American towns Jefferson had shown him earlier.
“What happened here?”
“Don’t you know?” said Teddy. “You signed the laws, after all.”
A pit welled up in Sam’s stomach.
“Come see what has become of this place and its people,” said Teddy.
After traveling through rows of once happy homes now marked for foreclosure, they came upon one flying an American flag in the yard and Christmas cheer displayed upon the windowsill.
“Who lives here?” asked Sam.
“Let’s go see,” said Teddy.
When they entered, they found a family of four sitting around a small table preparing to eat Christmas dinner: a father, a mother, a young boy, and a teenage girl.
The house was threadbare, with most of its belongings appearing cheaply made by foreign hands—including the Christmas tree and the few presents beneath.
Sam noticed a picture hanging on the wall of the father adorned in military uniform.
“He served us,” said Sam.
“Honorably, like his father and his before him,” said Teddy.
Sam suddenly felt the weight of Washington’s chains heavily upon his back.
“And now?”
“Laid off,” said Teddy. “When the plant where he toiled for years was looted by Private Equity and sold off for parts, leaving him with nary a shred of dignity and grim prospects.”
On the counter, Sam saw a stack of overdue bills.
The mother, wearing a work uniform emblazoned with the logo of an eponymous big box store, parceled the family’s meager meal onto her children’s plates, including a rather unappetizing ham that looked like it was concocted in a lab.
“She is wearing her work clothes,” noted Sam.
“She has to work tonight,” said Teddy, “her second job of the day.”
“But it’s Christmas!” exclaimed Sam.
“So,” said Teddy, “corporate profits must be made! And if she will not, then she will lose her situation to another. After all, no shortage of cheap labor for those paltry wages, thanks to you!”
Sam frowned deeply.
The father stood then, bowed his head, and led the family in prayer, and Sam joined in as well.
“And God bless America!” finished his son cheerfully, and his father beamed with pride.
But suddenly, the boy, who appeared quite sickly, was overtaken by a coughing fit, and his mother rushed to his side.
“Is he ok?” asked Sam.
Teddy shook his head. “Afflicted by an awful illness caused by corporate malfeasance.”
“The doctors are treating him, though?” asked Sam hopefully.
“The family cannot afford the care he desperately needs, and the company that caused his malady got off Scot free, thanks to your laws,” said Teddy.
“That is not right,” whispered Sam.
“What do you care!” boomed Teddy. “If the boy is to expire, best hurry and do it, along with the rest of this poor American family,” and parroting Sam’s words back at him, “and decrease the surplus population.”
“This is not what I want!” Sam replied angrily.
“Yet it is what you have wrought,” Teddy responded.
Abruptly, the scene faded from view, and the spirit, too.
Sam found himself in a dark, dreary expanse, with a tall, gangly figure standing grimly beside him, with a distinctive black top hat, and dressed all in black like an undertaker.
“The Ghost of America Yet to Come, I surmise,” said Sam to The Great Emancipator.
The ghost said nothing but simply pointed a long, thin finger towards the darkness ahead.
They came to a graveyard, in the middle of which stood a single tombstone.
“Who lies there?” asked Sam, afraid of the answer.
The figure only pointed again.
The United States of America, the grave read.
Sam shrieked in horror.
“It cannot be! It must not! Please, I’ll fix it! I promise!” Sam swore in the darkness. “Grant me the chance to alter this course—I beg you!”
Sam awoke to find that it was Christmas morning and, rushing to look outside, saw his nation still alive.
He rejoiced, for Fate had not yet been sealed.
“There is still time yet,” he thought, “to set America right.”