Could This Ever Happen Again?

I've been working on collages all morning. It's a strange process because, although the end result is often funny, the images I'm working with are generally pretty fucked up. I mostly manage to stay pretty cool and detached and logical during the process - if I didn't I would never get anything done. You just can't burst into tears at every single photo and accomplish anything, you know? However, I am not a robot, and it's always interesting to see which images get to me on a given day and why. Today I have been looking at concentration camps, African civil wars, floods, Vietnam...the usual. Every once in a while I have stopped and thought a little bit more about certain photos, but this one is the first one that really got to me today. This photo was taken by Ed Clark and appeared in Life magazine on April 17, 1945 (my grandfather's 28th birthday, and, I believe, the last one he spent fighting in World War II). The picture has a cool story and here it is:

"In Warm Springs, Ga., 50 photographers and newsreel cameramen jostled for a shot as the hearse carrying Franklin D. Roosevelt's body headed to the train station.

Suddenly, Life magazine photographer Ed Clark heard the strains of "Goin' Home," a favorite song of FDR's, being played on the accordion. Turning, he saw Navy bandsman Graham Jackson playing the tune, his face showing anguish and tears streaming down his cheeks.

"I thought, 'My God! What a picture,' " Clark said. "I took three or four shots with my Leica, hoping that nobody else noticed."

No one did. Clark's exclusive photograph took up a full page in the April 17, 1945, issue of Life, which was devoted to Roosevelt's death. The picture came to symbolize a nation's grief."

The reason this picture made me stop working and start crying is because it made me think of how far we've come as a nation from that moment. The thought of all those people of different backgrounds coming together and being so upset for the death of George Bush is laughable. It would never happen. The question is, could it ever happen again with any president, or is this image a product of a more innocent, less fractured time? Would Bill Clinton's death spark this type of emotion? I don't know if anyone's could. I have only been really sad and emotional about one public figure's death - George Harrison. But the only time I have experienced shared emotion on the scale that this photo depicts is on September 11 and the few days following. Is that what it takes these days? Sadly, I think the answer is probably yes.