John Hancock took up the pen, and presidents should do the same.
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Like windmills, energy-saving light bulbs, and McDonald's ice cream machines, the “auto-opener” has quickly gained popularity and become a near-personal obsession for President Donald Trump. While the rest of the world may be worried about tariffs or excited about the “big, beautiful bill,” what dominates the 47th president's mind is the automated writing device he claims was used in place of former President Joe Biden's real signature.
“Whoever used this has usurped the powers of the President, and it should be very easy to identify who this person (or people) is,” Trump wrote on Truth Social last month. “They have done things that Joe Biden in his right mind would never do, like open borders, trans rights for all, men in women’s sports, and so much more.”
I am not in a position to comment on the policy regarding the proper use of a pen by the commander in chief. Nor am I in a position to assess the ethical considerations that might influence its use in the specific situation of the commander in chief’s mental decline. However, as a near-lifelong collector of rare books, I am prepared to discuss the value of a signature—a real one, not one that is automated, simulated, or otherwise created by a non-human hand.
My first significant literary acquisitions were first editions, but over time I realized that the most valuable were those signed by the author. I still remember the initial set of signed “true firsts” (a posh name I soon adopted) that joined my collection: Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions, John Updike’s The Return of Beck, and Don DeLillo’s The Players—all works by major 20th-century American authors, and all signed by those same authors. Even as my literary tastes have changed, I’ve kept these editions, which, through something as simple as a signature, provide me with a connection to people I’ve never met and never will.
By the time I acquired them, each of the books was decades old, so I hadn’t witnessed their authors sign their names. Still, the mere presence of their signatures gave me a tangible, if distant, sense of intimacy. Each volume had once been held by one of my heroes, and because someone—a reader, a friend, a rare book collector—had encouraged them to commit their names to paper, they had left a mark (to quote the memorable line uttered by the character played by Scatman Crothers in the horror film The Shining).
In fact, it was Stephen King, author of The Shining, who first introduced me to the power of a signature. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, as a schoolboy I was so fascinated by the master of horror that I wrote him a letter in a fit of enthusiasm expressing my admiration for his novels and my desire to become a writer. For my efforts, I received a mass-produced postcard in return—you know, the kind where a writer tells me he no longer has time to respond personally to his fans—and while I wasn’t put off by the general nature of the letter, I remember asking my father if King’s signature at the bottom was real. Even then, I knew that a real signature was worth more than one that had been stamped, copied, or, of course, typed with a fountain pen. (Unfortunately, it was probably as mass-produced as the rest of the card.)
Over the years I have come into possession of first editions signed by John C.
Sourse: theamericanconservative.com
