OCR Text |
Show HAPPY FORTUNE THAT GAVE WASHINGTON TO THE NATION For many years there was a disposition dispo-sition to think of Washington as a good man, but nut a great one. This view prevailed even in this country to a very considerable extent. But it is no longer held by those who are best informed, for Washington's greatness great-ness is now everywhere acknowledged. It would be difficult perhaps impossible impossi-ble to point to a more completely rounded character. John Fiske has shown that he was a great military commander. Of tlie line quality of Washington's statesmanship there can be no question. He was a patriot without with-out even the suspicion of a taint of jingoism. He thought of his country not as something to be bragged about, but to be served. The law of service was. one may almost al-most say, the fundamental law of the life of Washington. He never sought office, and never desired it. One can not imagine him suggesting or consenting con-senting to legislation in order to win votes. The first President's moral courage was perhaps his most striking trail. He resisted every effort on the part of politicians and people alike to force the nation into war with England Eng-land on the side of revolutionary France. One may faintly imagine what be would have said in response to a suggestion that he could win votes by going to war, and would lose them by staying out. Not often has there been a more accurate characterization character-ization of a man than Lowell's of Washington, "Where the lot lurks that gives life's foremost place," Washington Washing-ton knew : Tet Duty's leaden casket holds It still. And but two ways are offered to our will. Toil with rare triumph, ease with safe disgrace. The problem still tor us and all of human hu-man race. He chose, as men choose, where most danger showed, "Knr pvpr filtered 'neath the load Of petty cares, that gall great hearts the most. Bat kept right on the strenuous uphill road, Strong to the end, above complaint or boast; The popular tempest on his rock-mftlled coast Wasted its wind-borne spray; The noisy marvel of a day; His soul sate still In its unstormed abode. Washington was the master of himself. him-self. In subjection only to his conscience. con-science. The English historian says that "no nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life." Thackeray's tributes to him are familiar. fa-miliar. All who have studied the character char-acter and work of this great man agree that there was in liim nothing of the self-seeker, nothing even of ambition am-bition except in that noble sense In which all good men are ambitious. Much he undoubtedly owed to the character char-acter with which he was born, and to bis inheritance, but much he also owed j to discipline. He had schooled him-1 self to generosity in victory, patience ; in defeat, and in that fineness of soul which safeguarded him against the blandishments of power. His was that long-breatlied valor and undaunted will. Which, like his own, the day's disaster I done. Could, safe in manhood, suffer and be still. Washington's fame grows with the years, and shines ever more brightly. He was a strange figure to be cast up out of a revolution. Demagogues or tyrants are usually the fruit of such upheavals. ' Perhaps the difference between be-tween him and other revolutionary leaders or some of them reflects in a measure the difference between our revolution nnd other revolutions. At any rate it ws the happy fortune of our country, and of the world, that this nation was led during the perilous days of the Revolution and of the formative period by a man who loved order and Institutional liberty, and who coveted for America only the I honor of duly-doing and of service to I the world. |