Why we still mourn on Nov. 22

Forty years ago tomorrow, this page was pondering the horrible reality of a presidential assassination that had rocked the nation. "No man can know, really, the full consequences of an act such as this one," our editorial that day said. "The course of history seems bound to change because of it, to be sure. But who can say how or in what direction?"

Perhaps few people then could have imagined that in the year 2003 so many people still would be fixated on the events of that day. Millions of people each year visit the old brick Texas Schoolbook Depository building in Dallas and pay money to visit the sixth floor. There they can look at the assassin's perch, arranged exactly as police found it after shots were fired. There they can look through the window and see a white X on the road below, painted on the street in poor taste by assassination buffs to mark the spot of the fatal head wound.

Why are so many still fixated? Why do we pay far more attention to John F. Kennedy's death date than to his birthday or to any notable moment in his administration?

The answer probably has less to do with Kennedy himself and more to do with other things people feel were lost that day. In many ways, history has gone in a bad direction. Back then, the vast majority of Americans told pollsters they trusted the federal government. Today, mistrust abounds. Back then, the office of the presidency commanded the respect and dignity of most people. Today, ugly protests are not uncommon whenever the president, whoever he happens to be, appears.

We agree with Kermit Hall, president of Utah State University and a member of the board that recently sifted through all documents related to the assassination, deciding which should be made public. He said the government's own obsession about keeping assassination-related documents secret has ultimately backfired. Forty years later, wild rumors and conspiracy theories abound about the crime. An entire industry has sprouted around the JFK assassination. This is due mainly to unnecessary secrecy, and it shows no sign of abating.

But the assassination itself is only part of the reason people feel drawn to it as a fixed point in time. Not long afterward, the nation was mired in race riots, a hopeless escalation of the Vietnam War, anti-war demonstrations on campuses (some of which became violent), Watergate and the resignation of a president, and several other things that have changed the nation's fabric forever.