What the US misses without a queen

Last week, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, marked another milestone: After 63 years, seven months, and two days, she’s now reigned longer than her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria. This milestone, she said, “is not one to which I have ever aspired.”

She had planned to spend just another ordinary day at Balmoral Castle, the rural retreat she and her Yorkies enjoy, but because everyone else was making a big fuss about marking the occasion, she agreed, along with her husband of 67 years, Prince Philip, to do something that would allow people to see her in public. Together, they marked the inauguration of a new railway line in Tweedbank, Scotland.

“Inevitably a long life can pass by many milestones — my own is no exception — but I thank you all and the many others at home and overseas for your touching messages of great kindness,” she said.

It’s no wonder so many people admire Queen Elizabeth. She is such a reliable exemplar of impeccable grammar, propriety, restraint, good manners and unfailing devotion to duty. And oh, the hats!

She has been queen since 1952, when she was 25 and Winston Churchill was prime minister. But her public debut came even earlier, in 1940, when she spoke on “The Children’s Hour,” a long-running radio program, to send greetings to all the British children who had been evacuated to the countryside and to foreign lands for the duration of World War II. In that broadcast, which is available online on the royal website, her poise, sincerity and seriousness of purpose are already evident.

Over the course of her life, she has provided a touchstone of continuity and stability through war and peace, through the decline and fall of Britain’s colonial empire, and through Britain’s transition to a multiracial society.

Her role is narrowly circumscribed. She is required to remain above politics, to refrain from comment on almost everything, and to serve, above all, as an exemplar of all of British culture’s virtues and none of its vices.

There are, of course, many who believe the monarchy is an anachronism. But even those who deride it as an undemocratic relic of inherited privilege acknowledge its cultural usefulness. The chief executive of an anti-monarchist organization called Republic was quoted by the BBC as saying it’s time to “choose a successor through free and fair elections.” Now that is a truly peculiar idea. We can only imagine what a competitive campaign for queen might be like.

We can also only imagine what it would be like here in the United States. If we were to elect someone to play the role Queen Elizabeth has played — that is, to embody all our virtues and none of our vices and to set a high standard for good behavior — whom would we choose?

In the past, we might have crowned Eleanor Roosevelt, if she had been just a bit less an activist, or perhaps Jacqueline Kennedy (though not after her second marriage). Both of them, after all, wore hats.

Today, it’s hard to imagine whom we would choose. But just thinking about it has improved our grammar, which might prove that having a queen is a good idea. Therefore, we now unofficially open the floor to nominations for queen of the United States of America.

This story was originally published September 17, 2015 at 2:30 PM with the headline "What the US misses without a queen."