Washington's Birthday Part 19

From the very beginning of the war until the end of his life, by official message and by letter, Washington urged the importance of military instruction. In his message to Congress in 1796 he said: "The inst.i.tution of a military academy is recommended by cogent reasons.

However pacific the general policy of a nation may be, it ought never to be without an adequate stock of military knowledge for emergencies. In proportion as the observance from the necessity of practicing the rules of the military art, ought to be its care in preserving and transmitting by proper establishments the knowledge of that art. A thorough examination of the subject will evince that the art of war is extensive and complicated; that it demands much previous study; and that the possession of it in its most important and perfect state is always of great moment to the security of a nation." Congress did make provision for the carrying out of many of the President's recommendations; it created a new grade in the army, that of _Cadet_, to which young men exclusively were admitted, and money was appropriated for their education in the science of war that they might be prepared for positions of command. But Congress delayed the potential part of the plan; it did not collect the regiment of artillerists and engineers at a single station, nor did it erect buildings for the uses of education.

The idea did not die; in 1802 Congress made the first of those provisions for a military academy with the plan and scope which Washington had so persistently urged. West Point was chosen as the place of its location. That academy has more than once demonstrated the wisdom of the far-seeing Washington.

West Point is the realization of Washington's plans for a national school of military instruction. To-day it represents to the country the important features of that plan for a National University. By his last will and testament, Washington bequeathed the fifty shares of stock in the Potomac Company to the establishment of a National University in the central part of the United States; he made provision that until such a university should be founded the fund should be self-acc.u.mulating by the use of the dividends in the purchase of more stock, to still further augment the endowment fund. In the transfers and changes of commercial life apparent record of that stock has been lost, yet that last will bequeathed an ideal which in indirect ways is still inspiring our national educational system.

Let us take our place by the side of a student of our national history and inst.i.tutions, as after a walk through the buildings across that n.o.ble plain at West Point he sits down to meditate, on the granite steps of the "Battle Monument." He is where the history of yesterday abides, but about him is represented the strength and life of the nation, and the strong military figures of officers, cadets, and soldiers from every section of our country. He feels the wisdom of that great desire of Washington's that the life and thought of the widely separated sections of the rising empire should become h.o.m.ogeneous and unified by the meeting of the young men of the land in a central school, during the years of training for the country's service at arms. This student of history would feel how that hope had been fulfilled by the loyal service which the sons of West Point to so large a degree rendered the Union in its days of peril; and with deep grat.i.tude would he acknowledge that enthusiastic loyalty with which the North and South, the East and West, as represented at West Point and throughout the country, rushed to its service to release those islands of the sea from the thraldom and tyranny of a medieval monarchy.

Then the vista of the future would open before him, and he would see that larger hope and plan of Washington's realized in the city of his name. There in that center in the Nation's life he would see young men a.s.sembling in the national schools of administration, commerce, consular service, and finance, to study questions of government and international relations. He would see reaching to all the lands of earth a peace more beautiful than that of the river below him; and wider and deeper than that Western ocean where now is flying our flag of hope and promise.

ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT

BY JOHN W. DANIEL

_Delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, February 21, 1885_

Mr. President of the United States, Senators, Representatives, Judges, Mr. Chairman, and My Countrymen:--Alone in its grandeur stands forth the character of Washington in history; alone like some peak that has no fellow in the mountain range of greatness.

"Washington," said Guizot, "Washington did the two greatest things which in politics it is permitted to man to attempt. He maintained by peace the independence of his country, which he had conquered by war. He founded a free government in the name of the principles of order and by re-establishing their sway." Washington did, indeed, do these things.

But he did more. Out of disconnected fragments, he molded a whole, and made it a country. He achieved his country's independence by the sword.

He maintained that independence by peace as by war. He finally established both his country and its freedom in an enduring frame of const.i.tutional government, fashioned to make liberty and union one and inseparable. These four things together const.i.tute the unexampled achievement of Washington.

The world has ratified the profound remark of Fisher Ames, that "he changed mankind's ideas of political greatness." It has approved the opinion of Edward Everett, that he was "the greatest of good men, and the best of great men." It has felt for him, with Erskine, "an awful reverence." It has attested the declaration of Brougham that he was "the greatest man of his own or of any age."...

Conquerors who have stretched your scepter over boundless territories; founders of empires who have held your dominions in the reign of law; reformers who have cried aloud in the wilderness of oppression; teachers who have striven to cast down false doctrines, heresy, and schism; statesmen whose brains have throbbed with mighty plans for the amelioration of human society; scar-crowned vikings of the sea, ill.u.s.trious heroes of the land, who have borne the standards of siege and battle, come forth in bright array from your glorious fanes, and would ye be measured by the measure of his stature? Behold you not in him a more ill.u.s.trious and more venerable presence? Statesman, soldier, patriot, sage, reformer of creeds; teacher of truth and justice, achiever and preserver of liberty, the first of men, founder and saviour of his country, father of his people--this is he, solitary and unapproachable in his grandeur!

Oh, felicitous Providence that gave to America our Washington!

High soars into the sky to-day, higher than the pyramid or the dome of St. Paul's or St. Peter's--the loftiest and most imposing structure that man has ever reared--high soars into the sky to where--"Earth highest yearns to meet a star" the monument which "We the people of the United States" have uplifted to his memory. It is a fitting monument, more fitting than any statue. For his image could only display him in some one phase of his varied character. So art has fitly typified his exalted life in yon plain, lofty shaft. Such is his greatness, that only by a symbol could it be represented. As Justice must be blind in order to be whole in contemplation, so History must be silent that by this mighty sign she may disclose the amplitude of her story.

No sum could now be made of Washington's character that did not exhaust language of its tributes and repeat virtue by all her names. No sum could be made of his achievements that did not unfold the history of his country and its inst.i.tutions--the history of his age and its progress--the history of man and his destiny to be free. But, whether character or achievement be regarded, the riches before us only expose the poverty of praise. So clear was he in his great office that no ideal of the leader or ruler can be formed that does not shrink by the side of the reality. And so has he impressed himself upon the minds of men, that no man can justly aspire to be the chief of a great, free people, who does not adopt his principles and emulate his example. We look with amazement on such eccentric characters as Alexander, Caesar, Cromwell, Frederick, and Napoleon, but when Washington's face rises before us, instinctively mankind exclaims: "This is the man for nations to trust and reverence, and for rulers to follow."

Drawing his sword from patriotic impulse, without ambition and without malice, he wielded it without vindictiveness, and sheathed it without reproach. All that humanity could conceive he did to suppress the cruelties of war and soothe its sorrows. He never struck a coward's blow. To him age, infancy, and helplessness were ever sacred. He tolerated no extremity unless to curb the excesses of his enemy, and he never poisoned the sting of defeat by the exultation of the conqueror.

Peace he welcomed as a heaven-sent herald of friendship; and no country has given him greater honor than that which he defeated; for England has been glad to claim him as the scion of her blood, and proud, like our sister American States, to divide with Virginia the honor of producing him.

Fascinated by the perfection of the man, we are loath to break the mirror of admiration into the fragments of a.n.a.lysis. But, lo! as we attempt it, every fragment becomes the miniature of such sublimity and beauty that the destructive hand can only multiply the forms of immortality.

Grand and manifold as were its phases, there is yet no difficulty in understanding the character of Washington. He was no Veiled Prophet. He never acted a part. Simple, natural, and unaffected, his life lies before us--a fair and open ma.n.u.script. He disdained the arts which wrap power in mystery in order to magnify it. He practiced the profound diplomacy of truthful speech--the consummate tact of direct attention.

Looking ever to the All-Wise Disposer of events, he relied on that Providence which helps men by giving them high hearts and hopes to help themselves with the means which their Creator has put at their service.

There was no infirmity in his conduct over which charity must fling its veil; no taint of selfishness from which purity averts her gaze; no dark recess of intrigue that must be lit up with colored panegyric; no subterranean pa.s.sage to be trod in trembling, lest there be stirred the ghost of a buried crime.

A true son of nature was George Washington--of nature in her brightest intelligence and n.o.blest mold; and the difficulty, if such there be, in comprehending him, is only that of reviewing from a single standpoint the vast procession of those civil and military achievements which filled nearly half a century of his life, and in realizing the magnitude of those qualities which were requisite to their performance--the difficulty of fashioning in our minds a pedestal broad enough to bear the towering figure, whose greatness is diminished by nothing but the perfection of its proportions. If his exterior--in calm, grave, and resolute repose--ever impressed the casual observer as austere and cold, it was only because he did not reflect that no great heart like his could have lived unbroken unless bound by iron nerves in an iron frame.

The Commander of Armies, the Chief of a People, the Hope of Nations could not wear his heart upon his sleeve; and yet his sternest will could not conceal its high and warm pulsations. Under the enemy's guns at Boston he did not forget to instruct his agent to administer generously of charity to his needy neighbors at home. The sufferings of women and children thrown adrift by war, and of his bleeding comrades, pierced his soul. And the moist eye and trembling voice with which he bade farewell to his veterans bespoke the underlying tenderness of his nature, even as the storm-wind makes music in its undertones.

Disinterested patriot, he would receive no pay for his military services. Refusing gifts, he was glad to guide the benefaction of a grateful State to educate the children of his fallen braves in the inst.i.tution at Lexington which yet bears his name. Without any of the blemishes that mark the tyrant, he appealed so loftily to the virtuous elements in man, that he almost created the qualities which his country needed to exercise; and yet he was so magnanimous and forbearing to the weaknesses of others, that he often obliterated the vices of which he feared the consequences. But his virtue was more than this. It was of that daring, intrepid kind that, seizing principle with a giant's grasp, a.s.sumes responsibility at any hazard, suffers sacrifice without pretense of martyrdom, bears calumny without reply, imposes superior will and understanding on all around it, capitulates to no unworthy triumph, but must carry all things at the point of clear and blameless conscience.

Scorning all manner of meanness and cowardice, his bursts of wrath at their exhibition heighten our admiration for the n.o.ble pa.s.sions which were kindled by the aspirations and exigencies of virtue.

Invested with the powers of a Dictator, the country bestowing them felt no distrust of his integrity; he, receiving them, gave a.s.surance that, as the sword was the last support of Liberty, so it should be the first thing laid aside when Liberty was won. And keeping the faith in all things, he left mankind bewildered with the splendid problem whether to admire him most for what he was or what he would not be. Over and above all his virtues was the matchless manhood of personal honor to which Confidence gave in safety the key of every treasure on which Temptation dared not smile, on which Suspicion never cast a frown. And why prolong the catalogue? "If you are presented with medals of Caesar, of Trajan, or Alexander, on examining their features you are still led to ask what was their stature and the forms of their persons; but if you discover in a heap of ruins the head or the limb of an antique Apollo, be not curious about the other parts, but rest a.s.sured that they were all conformable to those of a G.o.d."

"Rome to America" is the eloquent inscription on one stone of your colossal shaft--taken from the ancient Temple of Peace that once stood hard by the Palace of the Caesars. Uprisen from the sea of Revolution, fabricated from the ruins of bartered bastiles, and dismantled palaces of unrighteous, unhallowed power, stood forth now the Republic of republics, the Nation of nations, the Const.i.tution of const.i.tutions, to which all lands and times and tongues had contributed of their wisdom, and the priestess of Liberty was in her holy temple.

When Marathon had been fought and Greece kept free, each of the victorious generals voted himself to be first in honor, but all agreed that Miltiades was second. When the most memorable struggle for the rights of human nature of which time holds record was thus happily concluded in the muniment of their preservation, whoever else was second, unanimous acclaim declared that Washington was first. Nor in that struggle alone does he stand foremost. In the name of the people of the United States, their President, their Senators, their Representatives, and their Judges do crown to-day with the grandest crown that veneration has ever lifted to the brow of Glory, him whom Virginia gave to America, whom America had given to the world and to the ages, and whom mankind with universal suffrage has proclaimed the foremost of the founders of empire in the first degree of greatness; whom Liberty herself has anointed as the first citizen in the great Republic of Humanity.

Encompa.s.sed by the inviolate seas, stands to-day the American Republic, which he founded--a freer Greater Britain--uplifted above the powers and princ.i.p.alities of the earth, even as his monument is uplifted over roof and dome and spire of the mult.i.tudinous city.

Long live the Republic of Washington! Respected by mankind, beloved of all its sons, long may it be the asylum of the poor and oppressed of all lands and religions--long may it be the citadel of that Liberty which writes beneath the eagle's folded wings, "We will sell to no man, we will deny to no man, right and justice."

Long live the United States of America! Filled with the free, magnanimous spirit, crowned by the wisdom, blessed by the moderation, hovered over by the angel of Washington's example, may they be ever worthy in all things to be defended by the blood of the brave, who know the rights of man and shrink not from their a.s.sertion; may they be each a column, and all together, under the Const.i.tution, a perpetual Temple of Peace, unshadowed by a Caesar's palace, at whose altar may freely commune all who seek the union of liberty and brotherhood.

Long live our country! Oh, long through the undying ages may it stand far removed in fact as in s.p.a.ce from the Old World's feuds and follies; alone in its grandeur and its glory, itself the immortal monument of him whom Providence commissioned to teach man the power of truth and to prove to the nations that their redeemer liveth.

THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON

BY HENRY CABOT LODGE

For many years I have studied minutely the career of Washington, and with every step the greatness of the man has grown upon me; for a.n.a.lysis has failed to discover the act of his life which, under the conditions of the time, I could unhest.i.tatingly p.r.o.nounce to have been an error.

Such has been my experience, and, although my deductions may be wrong, they at least have been carefully and slowly made. I see in Washington a great soldier, who fought a trying war to a successful end impossible without him; a great statesman, who did more than any other man to lay the foundations of a republic which has endured in prosperity for more than a century. I find in him a marvelous judgment which was never at fault, a penetrating vision which beheld the future of America when it was dim to other eyes, a great intellectual force, a will of iron, an unyielding grasp of facts, and an unequaled strength of patriotic purpose. I see in him, too, a pure and high-minded gentleman of dauntless courage and stainless honor, simple and stately of manner, kind and generous of heart. Such he was in truth. The historian and the biographer may fail to do him justice, but the instinct of mankind will not fail. The real hero needs not books to give him worshipers. George Washington will always receive the love and reverence of men, because they see embodied in him the n.o.blest possibilities of humanity.

IX

ANECDOTES AND STORIES

ANECDOTES OF WASHINGTON

Washington's relations with children are most interesting. He always wrote of them as the "little ones."

Through his life he adopted or a.s.sumed the expenses of nine of the children of his "kith and kin."

Dumas says that he arrived at Providence with Washington at night. "The whole population had a.s.sembled from the suburbs; we were surrounded by a crowd of children carrying torches, all were eager to approach the person of him whom they called their father, and pressed so closely around us that they hindered us from proceeding. General Washington was much affected, stopped a few moments, and, pressing my hand, said, 'We may be beaten by the English, it is the chance of war; but behold an army which they can never conquer.'"

In journeying through New England, Washington spent a night in a private house where all payment was refused. Writing to his host he said: "Being informed that you have given my name to one of your sons, and called another after Mrs. Washington's family, and being, moreover, very much pleased with the modest and innocent looks of your two daughters, Patty and Polly, I do for these reasons send each of these girls a piece of chintz; and to Patty, who bears the name of Mrs. Washington, and who waited upon us more than Polly did, I send five guineas with which she may buy herself any little ornament, or she may dispose of them in any manner more agreeable to herself. As I do not give these things with a view to have it talked of, or even its being known, the less there is said about the matter the better you will please me; but, that I may be sure the chintz and money have got safe to hand, let Patty, who I dare say is equal to it, write me a line informing me thereof, directed to the President of the United States at New York."

Once the General was engaged in earnest consultation with Colonel Pickering until after night had fairly set in. Washington prepared to stay with the colonel over night, provided he had a spare blanket and straw. "Oh yes," said Primus, who was appealed to, "plenty of straw and blankets, plenty."