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Show V WASHINGTON AND OUR TIMES-By F.P.Gallagher I Y CHILDISH opinion expressed by a great poet 4 regarding Washington and Napoleon has somehow fastened itself in my memory. 1 "Europe produces grand men; America only great men," said Keats a poetic genius almost unrivalled in his time, yet one whose 'judgment of men and events was immature and often ab- tti surd. Keats was of just the character to be obsessed i by the material success of Napoleon. The glory of military achievement, a world trembling at the feet of the conqueror, the rush of battalions, 'the annihilation of empires and thrones and the swift elevation of the godlike hero to a position of imperial im-perial dignity equalling that of the Caesars cap-. cap-. W tured the imagination of the poet. To him Wash-ff Wash-ff ington, in His noble simplicity, seemed rather bu-fi bu-fi colic and tame when compared to the blazing i cdnqueror. Since that day America has produced r a genius and a character whom we liken to the greatest, but who would not strike the m 1 imagination of the English poet as one of those I i "grand men" produced, as he thought, by Europe i alone. M 8 TT7HENEVER this odd opinion flashes into my 1 VV mind I recall the opinion expressed by a gen ius equally brilliant who possessed a critical faculty fac-ulty the poet lacked. I fancy the works of Chateaubriand Cha-teaubriand are little read nowadays outside of t France. He was a contemporary of Washington and Napoleon, a writer whom Victor Hugo ad- R mired above almost any of the prose writers of Chateaubriand's period. At a later date the I term "prose poet" was devised. Surely no one I better deserved the title than the great French I writer. Indeed, the scope and warmth o his imag- 1 ination and the magnetic power of his style make 1 the title seem rather too motley for his genius. I Expatriated during the French revolution. Cha- I teaubriand visited George Washington at Philadel- phia. He saw in the American moral grandeur which was lost upon the materialistic genius of I Keats. So impressed was he by this visit and by his subsequent meditations on Washington and Napoleon that he wrote a parallel somewhat af- ter the fashion of Plutarch's "Parallel Lives." I have taken the trouble to translate a few I passages from his interview with Washington and ,1 also from his "Paiallel of Washington and Bona- B' parte." TN a few minutes the general enterdd," he I writes. He was a man of majestic foim with B an air calm and cold, rather than 'noble: he closely resembled his pictures. I presented my letter let-ter in silence; he opened it, glanced at the signa- Vture, which he read aloud with the exclamation, "Colonel Armand!" It was thus that the Marquis de la Rouairie had signed himself. "When we were seated, I explained as well as I could the reasons for my journey. He responded in French and English monosyllables, listening to me with a kind of astonishment. Perceiving this, I said with a little vivacity, 'It is easier to 'dis-I 'dis-I cover the Northwest passage than to create a peo ple as you have done.' '"Well, well, young man!' he exclaimed, ex tending his hand. He invited me for 'dinner on the following day and was parted." a, A FTER relating briefly his experienced during ; the second visit Chateaubriand writes: "Such was my meeting with the man who had enfranchised a world. Washington descended into tho tomb before the slighest renown attached to me. I passed before him as an unknown; he was in all his glory and I in all my obscurity. My name perhaps did not linger a day in his memory. Fortunate, however, that his regard has fallen L upon mo; I shall be warmed by it all the ledt of my life there is a Virtue in a great man's scrutiny. "Since then I have seen Bonaparte: thus Providence Provi-dence has Shown me the two men that it has placed at the head of the destinies of their cen-w turies." CI OMPARING and contrasting these two men Chateaubriand gives an estimate of their characters and their place in history which, 'a century later, we 'recognize as amazingly, almost prophetically expressing the view of our own times. I shall here quote somewhat fully from his parallel: "If one compares Washington and Bonaparte, man to man, the genius of the first seems to be on a plane less elevated than that of the second. sec-ond. Washington did not appertain, as did Bonaparte, Bona-parte, to the race of Alexander and of Ceasar, who quite surpassed the ordinary stature of the human species. Naught astonishing attaches to his personality; he is not placed in a vast theatre; he is not familiar with the most able and the most powerful monarchs of his age; 'he does not traverse tra-verse the oceans; he does 'not speed from Memphis Mem-phis to Vienna and from Cadiz to Moscow; he defends de-fends with a handful of citizens a land without memories and without renown, in the narrow circle cir-cle of domestic hearths. He does not participate in battles that duplicate the sanguinary victories of Arabella and Pharsalia; he does not overturn thrones to set up others on their ruins. "Something of the silence envelopes the acts of Washington; he acts with slowness. One might say that he felt the future's mandate for liberty and that he feared to compromise it. These are not the characteristics of a hero of a new species; spe-cies; they are those of his country. He does not permit himself to deal with that which does not appertain to him. But from his profound obscurity what a brilliancy leaps forth. Seek the remote oods where gleams the sword of Washington and what do you find? A tomb? No, a world! Washington Wash-ington has left the United States as a trophy from the field of battle. T) ONAPARTE has no trait of this grave '-"- American; he fights in an ancient land, surrounded with glory and acclamation; he desires to create nothing save his own renown; he concerns con-cerns himself only with his own destinies. He seems to know that his career will be brief, that the torrent which falls from such a height will vanish quickly; he hastens to enjoy and abuse his glory in fleeting youth. Like the gods of Homer he wishes to arrive in four paces at the end of the 'world; he appears on all strands, he inscribes his name precipitately in the records of every race, and casts, as he runs, crowns to his family and his soldiers; he hurries in his monuments, monu-ments, in his laws, in his victories. Leaning on the world, with one hand he hurls kings to earth, with the other he downs the revolutionary giant; but in crushing anarchy he stifles liberty, and ends by losing his own on his final field of battle. T7ACH is recompensed according to his works; 1j Washington elevates a nation to independence. independ-ence. A retired chief executive, he sleeps peacefully peace-fully 'under the paternal roof amid the regrets of his adherents and the esteem of all the people. "Napoleon robbed a nation of its independence; independ-ence; a dethroned emperor, he is cast into exile He expires; the news, published at the gate of the palace before which the conqueior had proclaimed so many funerals, does not halt nor even astonish the passerby; why should these citizens weep? "The republic of Washington remains, the empire em-pire of Napoleon is destroyed; it is established be- tween the first and second voyages of a French- man who finds a recognized nation there where he had fought in behalf of some oppressed col- onies. H "Washington 'and Bonaparte were produced 'by republics; both born of liberty, the first remains M 'loyal to it, the second betrays It . M iTpHE name of Washington expands with liber- M - ty from age to age; it marks the beginning M of a new era for the human family. This M man who impresses us little because he is natural M and of normal stature, has identified his existence M with that of his country; his glory is the common M heritage of a progressive civilization; his renown M rears itself as a sanctuary whence flows an in- M exhaustible spring for the people. M "Bonaparte could have equally enriched the M public. He dealt with a nation the most civilized, M the most intelligent, the most couiageous on earth. M What would be the rank occupied by him today M if he had linked magnanimity to that which he M had of the heroic; if, a Washington and a Bona- H parte in one, he had named liberty the heir of his M glory!" M H AS we review the works and words of Wash- M ington we are inclined to wonder what he M would have done had he been president during the M world war. We recall with surprise, not un- H mingled with amusement, that President Wilson H floundered like a fish out of water when confront- H ed by the eaily crises of the conflict. It took him H a long time to adjust his mind to the circumstances H and see them in their proper perspective. There H never was such a war before and even great M statesman might be forgiven for not seeing quickly H just what position their nation should assume. It H is to be noted, however, that Mr. Wilson was re- H elected on the plea that he had "kept us out of H war" and that a state of war actually existed be- H fore he began his new term of office. H We may feel fairly certain that George Wash- H ington, as he watched the developments of the H conflict in their relation to the United States, H would not have said anything about "being too H proud to fight." In his will, when devising his H swords to his five nephews, he employed this H language: H "These swords are accompanied with , tho in- H junction not to unsheath them for the purpose of shedding blood except it be for self-defnse or H in the defense of their country and its rights, and in the latter case to keep them unsheathed, and H prefer falling with them in their hands to the re- linquishment thereof." H Here we have a criterion by which to judge H his position at any crisis of the conflict. We may H not be able to decide whether, all things consid- ered, he would have raised his voice for war when the Lusitania was sunk, but we will be inclined to think that, under his administration, the war would have begun then. At all events his stern integrity would not have permitted him to run foi le election on such a platform as "he kept us out of war." On the contrary he would not have allowed al-lowed a day to pass without using all his influence and power to prepare the country for war. Ho would not have crippled his country's pieparations during an entire presidential campaign by talking about "peace" in such a way as to lull the people into a belief that preparation was unnecessary. It is not exaggerating to say that we have paid in needlessly additional casualties for the slowing down of preparation as the result of that campaign Washington would not have weakened and handicapped his country by lulling it into a false view of its peiil, but, even at the cost of his office, would have continued to warn his countrymen of the imminence of war. |
