28 November 2008
President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has, by proclamation, declared Saturday, November 29, 2008 the 113th Birth Anniversary of Liberia's 18th President, William Vacanarat Shadrach Tubman.
The day is to be observed as a National Holiday throughout and within the territorial confines of the Republic.
According to a Foreign Ministry release, the Proclamation is in recognition of the able leadership and achievements of the former President during his administration.
It is also in recognition of the late President Tubman's dauntless courage in providing new direction and momentum in the life of the Liberian people.
The Proclamation is in consonance with an Act of the Third Session of the42nd Legislature, which declared each birth anniversary of the 18th President as a National Holiday.
Brief Biography of Tubman
William V. S. Tubman was born on Nov. 29, 1895, in Harper, Maryland County, Liberia. His father, the Reverend Alexander Tubman, was a general in the Liberian army, former Speaker of the Liberian House of Representatives, former senator, and a Methodist minister. Tubman attended primary school in Harper, then the Methodist Cape Palmas Seminary, and finally Harper County High School.
Between 1910 and 1917 he took part in several punitive military expeditions, rising in the ranks from private to officer status. He studied law under private tutors, served as a recorder in the Maryland County Monthly and Probate Court and as a collector of internal revenue, and in 1917 was appointed county attorney.
Tubman entered the national political scene in 1923, when, at the age of 28, he was elected senator from Maryland County to the national legislature. He served in this capacity until 1937, when President Edwin Barclay appointed him to the post of associate justice of the Liberian Supreme Court.
However, Tubman remained active in Liberia's dominant political party, the True Whig party, and by 1943 had risen to such political standing that President Barclay personally nominated Tubman to succeed him. Tubman was elected president in 1943 and reelected in 1951, 1955, 1959, 1963, 1967, and 1971, for seven consecutive terms, which gave him the longest tenure of any modern president anywhere.
As president, one of Tubman's most significant contribution to Liberian politics was his "unification policy, " by which the hinterland counties, previously economically and politically neglected, were gradually brought into the national framework.
The inland counties became fully represented in the Congress, roads and amenities were brought to the interior, and, most significantly, hinterland leaders began to play an important role in all areas of government.
The open-door policy of Tubman, another major political line of his administration, permitted extensive foreign investment in Liberia's economy, particularly with respect to the development of the rich iron ore areas of Mt. Nimba and in the Bong and Wologosi ranges.
Tubman was a devout Methodist, a past grand master of the Masons, and a patron or officer in most of Liberia's important civic and voluntary organizations. He died on July 23, 1971, in London after surgery.
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that is not enough for you to do, i think you have so many responsibilites as a preseident , not only to observed birthday. plsease re visit ur decision mr president.