Show J pas t Ie 1 of r 1 7 m e TIC 1 I X W J s rt r t 1 by r s si t i Thomas Thoma Jefferson 4 By ELMO SCOTT WATSON N A recent letter to the Thomas Jefferson Jefferson Jef Jet ferson Memorial foundation President President President dent Hoover gave his his' approval to plans for marking the birthday of I Jefferson April 13 13 by proper celebration celebration celebration cele cele- J bration of the founding of ot religious I freedom saying that It would seem to me to fo be a fitting and Inspiring Inspiring Inspiring In In- undertaking Instead of appointing a special national committee committee com com- to un undertake the celebration the President stated It Is my thought that the board of oft J. J t governors of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial foundation foundation foun bun u r dation already alread comprises in Its membership men men and women of outstanding leadership in all directions of national thought and that It would be desirable that they should undertake to bring the occasion to the attention of the American people I and make such arrangements as would give It significance The board of governors go of the Thomas Jeffer Jefferson T r son Ion Memorial foundation Includes former President President dent Coolidge Stuart G. G Gibboney president of ot the foundation Dr George J. J Ryan nyan president of ot the board boar of education of New York city and Dr Edwin A A. Alderman president of the University of ot Virginia Whatever form the observance ance of the anniversary anniversary anni aunt takes this year a new v biography which appeared recently should accentuate the importance Im im- Importance of ot the date in the minds of ot all Ameri Amerl- cans For the title which Dr Gilbert Chinard professor of bt French literature at Johns Hopkins university and recognized as one of the leading authorities on this great statesman chose for the title of his new work which Is published by Little Brown and Company Is Thomas Jefferson Jefferson Jetterson Jeffer Jetter- son the Apostle of Americanism To the average aver er age citizen of at the United States familiar enough with the name and fame of ot Washington and Lincoln Thomas Jefferson is something of a aa a vague ue figure He lIe knows of him as the author of the Declaration of Independence as the third President of the United States as the man who added a vast territory to this tins nation In the Louisiana Purchase and as the man who Is re re- re for the phrase Jeffersonian d democracy I what whatever ver that may mean mean beIng being In tn our political vocabulary ry Yet as In In Inthe the case of ot Benjamin Franklin modern modern modern mod mod- ern historical research is bringing put gut more and more clearly cleary the Importance of Thomas Jefferson son sonIn In the founding and nd molding of our nation and proving that he es a place farther up on the heights at t the pinnacle of ot which we have placed Washington and Lincoln In solitary grandeur than we have hitherto given him No Noone Noone one would deny that without a Washington and anda n II Lincoln this nation undoubtedly could not be what It Is tod today y But It detracts nothing from r their fame to place close to them a Franklin and andi anda i n a Jefferson it Is a matter of simple Justice such sucha a as BS Wash Washington and Lincoln would be first to 2 Insist upon tilon r Of t the e modern modem historical researchers who have c labored to give gl Jefferson his rightful place In the hearts of his country countrymen en few have ha been more indefatigable than has Doctor Chinard He was the first to attempt the formidable task of ot going through the tens of thousands of ot unpublished Jefferson manuscripts In the Library of of- Congress and by painstaking study of Jeffersons Jefferson's own words bring to light new facts and a new understanding understand ing of that versatile man He has already written written written writ writ- ten five fi books dealing with various arlous phases of Jet Jet- ferson's career but this latest one is the crownIng crownIng crowning crown crown- ing effort of his work The story of his research Is a romance In Itself A part of ot It he tells teUs in the Introduction to his book Many days were spent In the rotunda rotunda rotunda ro ro- of ot the ma division manuscript of the Library of Congress of-Congress C s turning the leaves of ot the two hundred nun hun dred Bred and thirty volumes of ot the Jefferson papers h he e writes I Documents oc m after documents threw a anew anew anew new light on the mind of the great lette letters h hastily written rough drafts corrected and press copies blurred and hardly decipherable de de- de- de yellowed scraps of ot paper crumbling to pieces but piously r restored stored more lett letters rs In Ina Ina ina a regular precise hand the hand of a man who had bad been a n surveyor and who drew rather than wrote Except to the antiquarian It would seem that such Buch an experience would be far from a thrilling one one onea a wearily monotonous Job as ns dry dryas as the dust which always rises up from papers lon long g stored awny away But But says ays Doctor Chinard Fifty years of ot the mo most t event eventful period of ot American history told by bythe the h chief p participants rose from the old olf documents and nd day by day was revealed re more cle clearly the cut clean fi figure ur of ot I Jefferson the American And out of these old papers there stalked not talked not a great statesman aloof and detached detached de de- de- de from the world of everyday affairs but First of ot all nIl the tall lanky lanly boy born In In-a In a frame frame dw dwelling by the Rivanna not not a farmer boy hoy by any means but the of ot i a son an ambitious enera energetic ener ener- getic and respected surveyor a landowner and a colonel In le the militia and of or a mother In whose veIns joins ran rau the best blood of at Virginia Then the same ol old papers spoke eloquently of ot The stern and pious pion s education received received in the family the reading of at the Bible and Shakespeare the lessons of ot Reverend Maur Maury y the son of ot a Hu guenot ot who took the boy as a boarding stu student nt the tho years at William and Mary college in the brilliant animated ted but small capital of or Virginia the conversations with Mr Small Mr 1 Wythe Wyth and Governor Go Fau Fauquier qu t er the Appollo tavern the 8 first rat love affair and the long t lu in the hills hUla surrounding ShadwelL More years as a student stu Btu dent ot of the law V Md and as a law P c practitioner f followed by his quickly marriage ge with a Virginia and rho hom mss J Jefferson had belle belle settled down down a a 8 m- m Mo ello As It Appears T CK n tures from from- a rW v vs' vs of z s' s t Ir y 6 4 p 3 I r. r w Bust of k y d ThOm S As Y Ya r i a a t pf v w e l r Thomas Jeffel Jefferson ff son it ty o Rembrandt Pe Peal Pee Peale n e eIsing Ising young man a talented lawyer a respectable landowner an omnivorous reader who culled from hundreds of authors moral maxims bits o of poetry historical legal and philosophical disquisitions disquisitions s- s and copied them In a n neat at hand In his commonplace comm commonplace com com- m books It Is all nIl of at this and much more which this new biography of ot Jefferson reveals But most important im im- important is the development of the thesis that Thomas J Jefferson was the apostle of at Amen Ameri- and that he was the only original poUt l Ical leal thinker that this nation has produced The conventional view of ot the origin of Jeffersons Jefferson's political theories Is that the they were French because because be- be cause of his residence in France at one time and because as secretary of state Vice President an and President he viewed dewed with sympathetic Interest the French revolt against monarchy and the the Fr French struggle toward liberty Just as he sympathized sympathized sympathized with all struggles struggles- for tor liberty Doctor Chinard's book shows that Jeffersons Jefferson's principles were fixed long before the outbreak of the French Revolution Re and that although he be undoubtedly drew some of ot his ideas from French sources much of ot his political theory goes back to British political philosophers notably the English Locke and the Scotch Kames Dames Even this does not Invalidate Jeffersons Jefferson's claim to having been an original thinker and a great political philosopher In his own right as Doctor Chinard brings forth Innumerable documents t to prove The development of ot that philosophy had luid Its beginning beginning beginning be- be ginning In the reading which the young Virginian Vir- Vir ginian had bad done during the first 30 SO years of at his life during which time according to Doctor Chinard he never cease ceased unknowingly as It were to prepare himself for tor the great part he was to play Then says the biographer In the introduction Introduction Intro intro- to his book When the call came he ho was ready The Ideas expressed expressed ex ex- ex- ex pressed in fn the the Declaration of at Independence were common property but theIr felicitous wording was not due to a at sudden and feverish Inspiration The The- young Virginian expressed only the definite conclusions conclusions con con- he had slowly reached In reading rendIng the historians historians his hIs- and the old lawyers The pr principles there pro proclaimed were not abstract and a priori principles prin- prin principles they were Yere distinctly the principles that had directed his hIli Saxon forefathers In their settlement of England They were the legitimate inheritance of or their descendants and who had brought over with them to America the right of ot their ancestors to settle In sparsely Inhabited land there to live rr freely ely and happily under Institutions chosen by themselves This was the true background of or the Declaration of or Independence nce the background of ot Jeffersonian democracy democracy-a a curious Justification atlon of or the pioneer spirit by a student of or history who cared little for Cor abstract reasoning and philosophical constructions Thus far tar tho the national consciousness of or Thomas Jefferson had been somewhat hazy Born In Virginia Virginia Vir Vir- ginia and Intensely ely devoted to the Old Dominion he ho had never left lert his hla native habitat until he he was sent as a delegate ate to congress There only did he realize the tho divergences of the different rent colonies colonies' and the Imperious necessity for them to organize their life lire and to agree asree to some sort of a permanent com com- pact No Igo dealings with foreign nations could be transacted no efficient measures of or protection against ac the common toe roe could be devised unless the several states wore were held together by some Borne sort fort of ot a D. common bond and aM had hud achieved some sort of or unity While the tho Articles of ot Confederation were being discussed he puzzled over the essences and meaning of or those natural rights so often otten mentioned mentioned men men- In the tho different committees on which he sat The great reat obstacle to such an Isolation was foreign foreign for for- eign commerce for Jefferson clearly understood that economic and commercial bonds or dependence would necessarily entail political bonds and political po IJO po- po dependence America was to live In her own world to pay her debts as soon as possible to become become be be- be come Industrially Independent Qt of Europe to manufacture manu manu- facture at home enough for tor her own consumption and no more She was waa also to seize every opportunIty opportunity op op- op to eliminate dangerous neighbors not that she really coveted any territory or colony held by foreign powers not that she needed new land for a surplus of ot population but she sho could not keep out of ot European politics a If It Europe remained at her doors and used her colonies as a fulcrum for her Intrigues r In an n unpublished document which Doctor Chinard discovered In the hc Library of Congress Jefferson set down the result of or those medi medi- First he lie d U a distinction between be hc tween the natural lI rig rights is which tin this Individual can c br hr M- M Mir it 1 tr ir an 1 another class of rights which could not be safely enjoyed unless society provided ad adequate protection Therefore In forming a society and accepting a ZI asocial socia social compact the tho first rights were to be reserved reserved re re- re- re served and to remain inalienable the others were to be partly gl given en up in exchange for tor more security What was true of Individuals was true of ot states forming a union or or confederation Each individual state remained sovereign and yielded only part of certain rights in order to obtain m more ne security against foreign aggressors Thus Jefferson Jefferson Jef Jef- ferson first enunciated the principle of states' states rights but he considered the union of states of ot greater importance than any single state The Virginian ha had developed into a true American writes Chinard Jefferson was thinking nationally national national- ly and not he was ready for the great role he heva was va about to assume Further development of his political philosophy came during his year five stay In Europe which confirmed him In the tho opinion that there existed I in America the germ of something Infinitely precious if It f somewhat precarious and he realized that his country had really become the hope of the world It offered a n hope which could not be realized In France England Italy or Spain In those countries Traditions were too deeply rooted prejudices prejudices' of ot too long g standing c class ass distinctions distinctions dis dis- too sharply defined to leave room room for any hope If ever er seeing them established within a a. a reasonable time a tolerable form of ot government govern govern- ment meat On the contrary unhampered by such hoary traditionalism nn and free to shape her destinies destinies des des- America provided she carefully avoided the dangers daners under which Europe was laboring could coul 1 not only establish the best possible t form rm of government but set an example to be followed by the rest of mankind And Jefferson believed i that only by avoiding a any any entanglement with European politics c could America fulfill her destiny destiny destiny des des- tiny says Chinard who ho continues 0 Having removed all an causes for foreign frictions and aggressions ac America would be free tree to develop along her own lines She was WM to remain for long years' years to come an agricultural nation she would grow towards the tho West by attaching to herself hersel n new w territories as their population increased The federal government was to retain a minimum of power and attributions It was WM to be carefully and constantly watched for fear of at concentrating loo Soo much power In a few hands and In one place Federal legislation was to be kept down for tor the themore themore themore more laws th the worse th the republic It was desirable and necessary to preserve the main principles embodied in the Constitution In so far tar faras faras taras as they expressed the tho permanent and Inalienable rights of or the people and the sta states s but each generation gen- gen had a right ht to determine anew the details of the legislation on and how they chose to be governed gov gov- The different articles adopted In 1787 1737 were not to be considered as sacred as the Tables of ot the tho Law Lav they were wore the work of fallible and changing human beings and the tho essence of ot the tho American government did not rest on a written document but buton buton buton on the dispositions of at the individual citizens and andon an on enlightened public opinion This being t o case it became necessary to prepare prepare pre pre- pare pre each citizen for the tho part ho he was |