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Show liii ililllilll , .fvt, is, : , 4 .1 1 Portrait painted by W. Williams in Philadelphia Phila-delphia in 1794 for the Masonic lodge at Alexandria, Alex-andria, Va. This portrait will be .on the new nine-cent stamp. 2 Portrait by Charles Wilson Peale which will be on the new three-cent stamp. 3 Miniature portrait by Charles Wilson Peale which was presented by Washington to his niece, ' Harriet. This portrait will be on the new one-half one-half cent stamp. 4 Another portrait by Charles Wilson Peale made in 1795. It will be reproduced on the new five-cent stamp. 5 Photographic reproduction of the famous Houdon bust of Washington which has been chosen as the official portrait for the Washington Washing-ton bicentennial. 6 The Washington bicentennial medal. $ A 4 Ey ELMO SCOTT WATSON i FEBRUARY 22 America will be-m be-m 8ln a nation-wide celebration hon-tiM hon-tiM onng tlle memory of the greatest ViiX. fu American. For February 22 is the 5?f "wi 200th anniversary of the birth of 1W George Washington and, as a re- innnnr' P'ans which have been m I Is' preparation for several years, the gyyU UZ observance of this bicentennial will be the most extensive ever held in this country. But the ceremonies on February 22 are only the beginning of a series of patriotic pilgrimages pageants, programs, dedication of memorials and other forms of celebration which will be held until Thanksgiving Thanks-giving day, all having as their purpose a "reawakening "re-awakening In the hearls of all Americans of an appreciation for the character and the life of America's greatest citizen." In addition to these celebrations, the name, of George Washington will be kept daily before his countrymen in other ways. Every time they mail a letter or a parcel they will see his face, for a series of 12 commemorative postage stamps, ranging in denomination from one-half cent to ten cents have been issued, each one bearing a likeness of Washington. In their pockets will jingle a new 25-cent silver coin which will bear the face of Washington on the obverse. This new quarter is not a "special issue" is-sue" merely to mark the Washington bicentennial bicenten-nial but it will replace the 2o-cent piece now in general circulation. The year is certain to bring forth also new books about Washington in which new attempts will be made to interpret Washington in his various roles as a soldier, as a business leader, as a statesman, as a President and as a man. In view of this fact, it is pertinent to raise the question, "Considering the nmount that has already been written about Washington, is there anything new that can be said about him?" Offhand, Off-hand, the answer would probably ho "Xo !" Yet the fact remains that something new has been said about him and that in a recently published pub-lished biography. It is "George Washington, Republican Aristocrat," written by Bernard Fay and published by the Houghton Mifflin company, and this book is Important, not only because of the interpretation of Washington as a "Republican "Repub-lican aristocrat" but because his interpreter is not a fellow-countryman but a foreigner, a Frenchman, therefore a man whose judgments are less likely to bo obscured by partisanship one way or the other. It is doubtful if there - has yet been written such an adequate and understanding summary of the greatness of George Washington without with-out indulging in extravagant language as the which soon turned to enthusiasm. Washington accomplished, by the legend which so immediately immedi-ately surrounded him, more than anyone else had done. By his personality he prepared the extremists and the traditionalists to accept democratic dem-ocratic ideas." "There was nothing of the revolutionary about him." So it is all the more remarkable that this Virginia gentleman, this land-holding aristocrat, should engage in a struggle in behalf of the common people in which he had everything to lose and but little to gain. If he could have foreseen that he would have to carry on that struggle almost single-handed and then after it was won that he would be reviled by those whom he had setjved so well and for whom he had suffered so much, one wonders if he would have engaged in it. For like all great men even more so than most he was a lonely man a lonely man, both in private life nnd in public office. Throughout his life he carried on his heart the burden of an unrequited love, his love for Sally Gary, who married his best friend and nniglihor,- George Fairfax. Eveu when he married "the Widow Custis" he was still a lonely man. While he was busy building up the estate at Mount Vernon, according to M. Fay, "He noted in his diary sometimes during a whole week that he had remained re-mained at home alone although Martha Washington Wash-ington was living under the same roof and in the same house." But this was as nothing to the loneliness that was to come to him during the dark hours of the Revolution when he was trying to keep together the wretched little army which congress con-gress had given him for winning the independence independ-ence of the new nation and then gave him nothing noth-ing more, certainly not enough supplies or even moral support for carrying on his almost insuperable in-superable task. Even when he had been successful, success-ful, when the new nation had rewarded him with the highest honor in its power by making him its first President, he was also the first to discover what every President since then has learned that the Presidency is a lonely job, wherein the occupant of that position never knows whom to trust. For no sooner was he made President than he found himself traveling travel-ing a lonely path between two opposing political politi-cal ideals the monarchial tendencies of the Federalists and the democratic theories of the Republicans. So he followed his lonely course to the end (g by Western Newspaper Union.) admirable essay which forms the introduction to M. Fay's book. Those who beiieve in the hand of God in the affairs of man will indorse the idea set forth in this introduction that George Washington came on the stage of history at the precise moment he was most needed. It was the Eighteenth Eight-eenth century when all looked forward with joy to the arrival of an "enlightened despot." "He was a gentleman. He was rich. He was a soldier. There was nothing of the revolutionary revolution-ary about him. And,, for the first time, in more than fifteen centuries, he exemplified the type of hero who declined supreme power and wished to command only to serve. The world did not expect this; and it surprised the upper classes more than any other attitude would have done. And throughout the entire world the conservative con-servative classes, the middle classes, the enlightened enlight-ened nobility, and the people who, even though most cautious, were desirous of change, beheld the serene, great man with an astonishment |
