Show FX S jq 44 A ae VIA t stuarts famous painting of the great patriot 3 THE wy V ad GREAT A T V JR G I 1 N I 1 A IN i the eighteenth century history ur country groups itself about central figure we never escape the ahe presence of the great virginian ind yet it was a time rich in product it Is not easy to ahe e causes which produced this abaz ang na fruitage of ability among the men who caused and car ned e 1 I the revolution were many who dashington Eash brilliant billant qualities far surpassed ft ashington ington seen through the mist lears rears they rise in our imagination seem grouped about the grave virgin la in a sturdy figure as in the church at innsbruck the bronze statues of friends and allies surround the amb mb where the great kaiser maximilian kneels in prayer t among these makers of an empire were great orators and washington was none grave jurists and he had little learning there too wert tta ta of more original intellect ahan than was ever his generals there were who had been better had he been free to choose but by the grace of god and some strange skill of nature this his imperial man was the master of ahem them all and used them as he used blin self with but one ambition how best to serve the land he loved what was there in the man which still makes him stand for us a larger human figure than hamilton or john adams or jefferson in some ways nays the difference seems clear his ashness w as without a flaw his sense of duty was like a religion he had in perfection both moral and physical courage he who Is without fear is rarely without hope and it may have been this which gave him such infalt ering hopefulness as seemed to have the force of inspiration the self sus power of prophetic insight no doubt other men also possessed these characteristics but none had them in so high a degree this does help us to comprehend him but does not ade describe a great historic per conage who has become for us to day no more than a splendid lay figure and yet we know of him all that we need to know almost to much indeed when the inquisitive spirit of the re dorter intrusive in history gives us details which are common to many men and do not help us to understand the one man his slow sure mind his heroic pa tience hence his strong passions his asplen did physical manhood nowhere on any page express themselves in terms 0 of f life Is this because the lives of the greatest always leave something of the causes of greatness unrevealed 9 it may be so to or is this stately figure still waiting for the revealing blog eapher who will give us such a life like presentment as carlyle has left of frederick and of Cromwell 9 it would seem to be easy tor for what life reports itself more simply what more rich in interest and in incident f what personality personal ltv was ever more clearly built up by efforts which raise stone on stone the masonry of character its value to the thoughtful lies less in the attained serenity of the statuesque cwashington lW washington ashington present to the common mind than in a correct apprehension of the process by which the crude vir eginia ginia boy grew into the maturity of the official years of our first president J there rises before me as I 1 write athe the figure of the half educated over serious country bred lad forced to depend on his 0 in exertions he learns to survey land and accepts dally daily wages a thing not fancied by the vir ginia ginta gentleman of that day we see him at the camp fires of the trader and the indian and in the stillness of the ohio forests plotting surveys and measuring trees at nineteen he Is sent as envoy to the aggressive french on the frontier next as a militia ma jor he strikes the first blow in the seven years war little thinking what it was to bring forth and what to teach at the age of twenty three he comes out of the defeat with braddock one of the few who won praise and honor the long border struggle which followed Is a record of exasperating struggles with ignorant governors in ef lelent legislators drunken militia and untrained officers we come next to the fox hunting squire the accod farmer a master of slaves still longing for war the profession of arms did he dream that he should see too much of it and would some day write that he hoped tor for a great republic of mankind where the growth of commerce would become the most certain peacemaker and all war would be at an end at forty four he was in command at cambridge last of all he is twice president then come two happy years at mount vernon and on a december night the tired man finds in death that which earth denied the peace which Is past understand ing my purpose today to day is to speak to you of washington as I 1 find him in his written words where most he seems to be alive I 1 want you to share with me what I 1 got out of months of pa tient study of mr ford s collection of his letters these are in fourteen volumes eight thousand pages in all he was the most productive of american writ ers there are three thousand docu ments some two thousand entirely from his own hand mr ford tells me that in all this untiring man has left us about ten thousand letters j none are mere notes and the letter of that day was no trifle the handwriting demands a word of comment how clear it how steadily the same with never a sign oi 01 haste I 1 have seen the letter he wrote to announce arnold arnolds s treason it betrays no sign of the emotion that awful hour must have caused an hour which informed with the sad loneliness ot of the great wrung from this tranquil soldier who is there now I 1 can trust like most great rulers george washington was a silent man to be called upon for public speech embar him he was shy reserved undemonstrative and de lauzun says diffident john adams said half halt his reputation was due to his talent for silence well had it been for his critic had he had that virtue for both tongue and pen this reserved gen tieman confessed himself readily to paper he who in tall and diaries said nothing personal of his views or of what he seemed to himself to be in his letters gives us freely to know what he thought he was morally and mentally it is an autobiography quite innocently revealed with all his love of ceremony and ils his personal dignity a man with whom no one took liberties it is in i W i 1 H i te resting to see ab u we have already seen how humbly chumbl and how simply be he writes write S of hi his 8 defects he S says ay S I 1 have no genius for war he finds it hard to learn this business bu biness warfare and at the same time to practice it he excuses sullivan sullivans s defeat all of us he says want experience in amov ing men upon a large scale our knowledge of military matters is lim cited As a critic of war he was the first to insist again and again that the corn com mand inand of the sea was all important what the british fleet will do puzzles him but not the plans of his adver aries caries on land he predicts bur goyne s disaster and tells greene that such defeats as his are victories we have been told that he was no great general if with half fed ill III clad men with constant lack of arms and powder and at last with inertia everywhere and a country in ruins if with such means he baffled a foe rich in 11 men ine money and sea power if with little he accomplished all he set out to do there must at least be a label for this form of greatness turning from his fiery courage and reckless exposure in war there are in these letters many evidences of ten verneis and humanity they aro are shown early in life when he says that he would readily die in torture to save the frontier people from indian cruelty they appear in his extreme unwillingness to make reprisals on innocent men he steadily refused as he says to avenge cruelty by cruel ty he reproaches a general tor for such conduct and pleads mercy for the tories while sir henry clinton is car crying on a savage warfare of murder and rapine this man had no children he was the ancestor of a nation let no repetition of his praise lose for you the true value of the man he left to us the heirs of his renown a record of ot ng courage a story of heroic conduct an example of lifelong duty the unequalled life of an unequalled day from an address by dr S weir mitchell Mi |