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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Americanism of Washington + +Author: Henry Van Dyke + +Release Date: February 20, 2004 [EBook #11192] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMERICANISM OF WASHINGTON *** + + + + +Produced by Connie Boitano and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + +</pre> + + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> + +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<h1><i>THE AMERICANISM OF WASHINGTON</i></h1> + +<br> + +<br> + +<h1><i>THE AMERICANISM OF WASHINGTON</i></h1> + +<h4>By</h4> + +<h3>Henry van Dyke</h3> + +<h5>New York and London</h5> + +<h5>Harper & Brothers Publishers</h5> + +<h5>1906</h5> <hr> + +<br> + +<br> + +<p>Hard is the task of the man who at this late day attempts to say +anything new about Washington. But perhaps it may be possible to unsay +some of the things which have been said, and which, though they were at +one time new, have never at any time been strictly true.</p> + +<p>The character of Washington, emerging splendid from the dust and tumult +of those great conflicts in which he played the leading part, has passed +successively into three media of obscuration, from each of which his +figure, like the sun shining through vapors, has received some disguise +of shape and color. First came the mist of mythology, in which we +discerned the new St. George, serene, impeccable, moving through an +orchard of ever-blooming cherry-trees, gracefully vanquishing dragons +with a touch, and shedding fragrance and radiance around him. Out of +that mythological mist we groped our way, to find ourselves beneath the +rolling clouds of oratory, above which the head of the hero was +pinnacled in remote grandeur, like a sphinx poised upon a volcanic peak, +isolated and mysterious. That altitudinous figure still dominates the +cloudy landscapes of the after-dinner orator; but the frigid, academic +mind has turned away from it, and looking through the fog of criticism +has descried another Washington, not really an American, not amazingly a +hero, but a very decent English country gentleman, honorable, +courageous, good, shrewd, slow, and above all immensely lucky.</p> + +<p>Now here are two of the things often said about Washington which need, +if I mistake not, to be unsaid: first, that he was a solitary and +inexplicable phenomenon of greatness; and second, that he was not an +American.</p> + +<p>Solitude, indeed, is the last quality that an intelligent student of his +career would ascribe to him. Dignified and reserved he was, undoubtedly; +and as this manner was natural to him, he won more true friends by +using it than if he had disguised himself in a forced familiarity and +worn his heart upon his sleeve. But from first to last he was a man who +did his work in the bonds of companionship, who trusted his comrades in +the great enterprise even though they were not his intimates, and who +neither sought nor occupied a lonely eminence of unshared glory. He was +not of the jealous race of those who</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne";</span><br> + +<p>nor of the temper of George III., who chose his ministers for their +vacuous compliancy. Washington was surrounded by men of similar though +not of equal strength—Franklin, Hamilton, Knox, Greene, the Adamses, +Jefferson, Madison. He stands in history not as a lonely pinnacle like +Mount Shasta, elevated above the plain</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"By drastic lift of pent volcanic fires";</span><br> + +<p>but as the central summit of a mountain range, with all his noble +fellowship of kindred peaks about him, enhancing his unquestioned +supremacy by their glorious neighborhood and their great support.</p> + +<p>Among these men whose union in purpose and action made the strength and +stability of the republic, Washington was first, not only in the +largeness of his nature, the loftiness of his desires, and the vigor of +his will, but also in that representative quality which makes a man able +to stand as the true hero of a great people. He had an instinctive power +to divine, amid the confusions of rival interests and the cries of +factional strife, the new aims and hopes, the vital needs and +aspirations, which were the common inspiration of the people's cause +and the creative forces of the American nation. The power to understand +this, the faith to believe in it, and the unselfish courage to live for +it, was the central factor of Washington's life, the heart and fountain +of his splendid Americanism.</p> + +<p>It was denied during his lifetime, for a little while, by those who +envied his greatness, resented his leadership, and sought to shake him +from his lofty place. But he stood serene and imperturbable, while that +denial, like many another blast of evil-scented wind, passed into +nothingness, even before the disappearance of the party strife out of +whose fermentation it had arisen. By the unanimous judgment of his +countrymen for two generations after his death he was hailed as <i>Pater +Patriae</i>; and the age which conferred that title was too ingenuous to +suppose that the father could be of a different race from his own +offspring.</p> + +<p>But the modern doubt is more subtle, more curious, more refined in its +methods. It does not spring, as the old denial did, from a partisan +hatred, which would seek to discredit Washington by an accusation of +undue partiality for England, and thus to break his hold upon the love +of the people. It arises, rather, like a creeping exhalation, from a +modern theory of what true Americanism really is: a theory which goes +back, indeed, for its inspiration to Dr. Johnson's somewhat crudely +expressed opinion that "the Americans were a race whom no other mortals +could wish to resemble"; but which, in its later form, takes counsel +with those British connoisseurs who demand of their typical American +not depravity of morals but deprivation of manners, not vice of heart +but vulgarity of speech, not badness but bumptiousness, and at least +enough of eccentricity to make him amusing to cultivated people.</p> + +<p>Not a few of our native professors and critics are inclined to accept +some features of this view, perhaps in mere reaction from the unamusing +character of their own existence. They are not quite ready to subscribe +to Mr. Kipling's statement that the real American is</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Unkempt, disreputable, vast,"</span><br> + +<p>I remember reading somewhere that Tennyson had an idea that Longfellow, +when he met him, would put his feet upon the table. And it is precisely +because Longfellow kept his feet in their proper place, in society as +well as in verse, that some critics, nowadays, would have us believe +that he was not a truly American poet.</p> + +<p>Traces of this curious theory of Americanism in its application to +Washington may now be found in many places. You shall hear historians +describe him as a transplanted English commoner, a second edition of +John Hampden. You shall read, in a famous poem, of Lincoln as</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"New birth of our new soil, the <i>first</i> American."</span><br> + +<p>He knew it, I say: and by what divination? By a test more searching than +any mere peculiarity of manners, dress, or speech; by a touchstone able +to divide the gold of essential character from the alloy of superficial +characteristics; by a standard which disregarded alike Franklin's fur +cap and Putnam's old felt hat, Morgan's leather leggings and +Witherspoon's black silk gown and John Adams's lace ruffles, to +recognize and approve, beneath these various garbs, the vital sign of +America woven into the very souls of the men who belonged to her by a +spiritual birthright.</p> + +<p>For what is true Americanism, and where does it reside? Not on the +tongue, nor in the clothes, nor among the transient social forms, +refined or rude, which mottle the surface of human life. The log cabin +has no monopoly of it, nor is it an immovable fixture of the stately +pillared mansion. Its home is not on the frontier nor in the populous +city, not among the trees of the wild forest nor the cultured groves of +Academe. Its dwelling is in the heart. It speaks a score of dialects but +one language, follows a hundred paths to the same goal, performs a +thousand kinds of service in loyalty to the same ideal which is its +life. True Americanism is this:</p> + +<p>To believe that the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the +pursuit of happiness are given by God.</p> + +<p>To believe that any form of power that tramples on these rights is +unjust.</p> + +<p>To believe that taxation without representation is tyranny, that +government must rest upon the consent of the governed, and that the +people should choose their own rulers.</p> + +<p>To believe that freedom must be safeguarded by law and order, and that +the end of freedom is fair play for all.</p> + +<p>To believe not in a forced equality of conditions and estates, but in a +true equalization of burdens, privileges, and opportunities.</p> + +<p>To believe that the selfish interests of persons, classes, and sections +must be subordinated to the welfare of the commonwealth.</p> + +<p>To believe that union is as much a human necessity as liberty is a +divine gift.</p> + +<p>To believe, not that all people are good, but that the way to make them +better is to trust the whole people.</p> + +<p>To believe that a free state should offer an asylum to the oppressed, +and an example of virtue, sobriety, and fair dealing to all nations.</p> + +<p>To believe that for the existence and perpetuity of such a state a man +should be willing to give his whole service, in property, in labor, and +in life.</p> + +<p>That is Americanism; an ideal embodying itself in a people; a creed +heated white hot in the furnace of conviction and hammered into shape on +the anvil of life; a vision commanding men to follow it whithersoever it +may lead them. And it was the subordination of the personal self to that +ideal, that creed, that vision, which gave eminence and glory to +Washington and the men who stood with him.</p> + +<p>This is the truth that emerges, crystalline and luminous, from the +conflicts and confusions of the Revolution. The men who were able to +surrender themselves and all their interests to the pure and loyal +service of their ideal were the men who made good, the victors crowned +with glory and honor. The men who would not make that surrender, who +sought selfish ends, who were controlled by personal ambition and the +love of gain, who were willing to stoop to crooked means to advance +their own fortunes, were the failures, the lost leaders, and, in some +cases, the men whose names are embalmed in their own infamy. The +ultimate secret of greatness is neither physical nor intellectual, but +moral. It is the capacity to lose self in the service of something +greater. It is the faith to recognize, the will to obey, and the +strength to follow, a star.</p> + +<p>Washington, no doubt, was pre-eminent among his contemporaries in +natural endowments. Less brilliant in his mental gifts than some, less +eloquent and accomplished than others, he had a rare balance of large +powers which justified Lowell's phrase of "an imperial man." His +athletic vigor and skill, his steadiness of nerve restraining an +intensity of passion, his undaunted courage which refused no necessary +risks and his prudence which took no unnecessary ones, the quiet +sureness with which he grasped large ideas and the pressing energy with +which he executed small details, the breadth of his intelligence, the +depth of his convictions, his power to apply great thoughts and +principles to every-day affairs, and his singular superiority to current +prejudices and illusions—these were gifts in combination which would +have made him distinguished in any company, in any age.</p> + +<p>But what was it that won and kept a free field for the exercise of these +gifts? What was it that secured for them a long, unbroken opportunity of +development in the activities of leadership, until they reached the +summit of their perfection? It was a moral quality. It was the evident +magnanimity of the man, which assured the people that he was no +self-seeker who would betray their interests for his own glory or rob +them for his own gain. It was the supreme magnanimity of the man, which +made the best spirits of the time trust him implicitly, in war and +peace, as one who would never forget his duty or his integrity in the +sense of his own greatness.</p> + +<p>From the first, Washington appears not as a man aiming at prominence or +power, but rather as one under obligation to serve a cause. Necessity +was laid upon him, and he met it willingly. After Washington's +marvellous escape from death in his first campaign for the defence of +the colonies, the Rev. Samuel Davies, fourth president of Princeton +College, spoke of him in a sermon as "that heroic youth, Colonel +Washington, whom I can but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so +signal a manner for some important service to his country." It was a +prophetic voice, and Washington was not disobedient to the message. +Chosen to command the Army of the Revolution in 1775, he confessed to +his wife his deep reluctance to surrender the joys of home, acknowledged +publicly his feeling that he was not equal to the great trust committed +to him, and then, accepting it as thrown upon him "by a kind of +destiny," he gave himself body and soul to its fulfilment refusing all +pay beyond the mere discharge of his expenses, of which he kept a strict +account, and asking no other reward than the success of the cause which +he served.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but he was a rich man," cries the carping critic; "he could afford +to do it." How many rich men to-day avail themselves of their +opportunity to indulge in this kind of extravagance, toiling +tremendously without a salary, neglecting their own estate for the +public benefit, seeing their property diminished without complaint, and +coming into serious financial embarrassment, even within sight of +bankruptcy, as Washington did, merely for the gratification of a desire +to serve the people? This is indeed a very singular and noble form of +luxury. But the wealth which makes it possible neither accounts for its +existence nor detracts from its glory. It is the fruit of a manhood +superior alike to riches and to poverty, willing to risk all, and to use +all, for the common good.</p> + +<p>Was it in any sense a misfortune for the people of America, even the +poorest among them, that there was a man able to advance sixty-four +thousand dollars out of his own purse, with no other security but his +own faith in their cause, to pay his daily expenses while he was leading +their armies? This unsecured loan was one of the very things, I doubt +not, that helped to inspire general confidence. Even so the prophet +Jeremiah purchased a field in Anathoth, in the days when Judah was +captive unto Babylon, paying down the money, seventeen shekels of +silver, as a token of his faith that the land would some day be +delivered from the enemy and restored to peaceful and orderly +habitation.</p> + +<p>Washington's substantial pledge of property to the cause of liberty was +repaid by a grateful country at the close of the war. But not a dollar +of payment for the tremendous toil of body and mind, not a dollar for +work "overtime," for indirect damages to his estate, for commissions on +the benefits which he secured for the general enterprise, for the use of +his name or the value of his counsel, would he receive.</p> + +<p>A few years later, when his large sagacity perceived that the +development of internal commerce was one of the first needs of the new +country, at a time when he held no public office, he became president of +a company for the extension of navigation on the rivers James and +Potomac. The Legislature of Virginia proposed to give him a hundred and +fifty shares of stock. Washington refused this, or any other kind of +pay, saying that he could serve the people better in the enterprise if +he were known to have no selfish interest in it. He was not the kind of +a man to reconcile himself to a gratuity (which is the Latinized word +for a "tip" offered to a person not in livery), and if the modern +methods of "coming in on the ground-floor" and "taking a rake-off" had +been explained and suggested to him, I suspect that he would have +described them in language more notable for its force than for its +elegance.</p> + +<p>It is true, of course, that the fortune which he so willingly imperilled +and impaired recouped itself again after peace was established, and his +industry and wisdom made him once more a rich man for those days. But +what injustice was there in that? It is both natural and right that men +who have risked their all to secure for the country at large what they +could have secured for themselves by other means, should share in the +general prosperity attendant upon the success of their efforts and +sacrifices for the common good.</p> + +<p>I am sick of the shallow judgment that ranks the worth of a man by his +poverty or by his wealth at death. Many a selfish speculator dies poor. +Many an unselfish patriot dies prosperous. It is not the possession of +the dollar that cankers the soul, it is the worship of it. The true test +of a man is this: Has he labored for his own interest, or for the +general welfare? Has he earned his money fairly or unfairly? Does he use +it greedily or generously? What does it mean to him, a personal +advantage over his fellow-men, or a personal opportunity of serving +them?</p> + +<p>There are a hundred other points in Washington's career in which the +same supremacy of character, magnanimity focussed on service to an +ideal, is revealed in conduct. I see it in the wisdom with which he, a +son of the South, chose most of his generals from the North, that he +might secure immediate efficiency and unity in the army. I see it in the +generosity with which he praised the achievements of his associates, +disregarding jealous rivalries, and ever willing to share the credit of +victory as he was to bear the burden of defeat. I see it in the patience +with which he suffered his fame to be imperilled for the moment by +reverses and retreats, if only he might the more surely guard the frail +hope of ultimate victory for his country. I see it in the quiet dignity +with which he faced the Conway Cabal, not anxious to defend his own +reputation and secure his own power, but nobly resolute to save the army +from being crippled and the cause of liberty from being wrecked. I see +it in the splendid self-forgetfulness which cleansed his mind of all +temptation to take personal revenge upon those who had sought to injure +him in that base intrigue. I read it in his letter of consolation and +encouragement to the wretched Gates after the defeat at Camden. I hear +the prolonged reechoing music of it in his letter to General Knox in +1798, in regard to military appointments, declaring his wish to "avoid +feuds with those who are embarked in the same general enterprise with +myself."</p> + +<p>Listen to the same spirit as it speaks in his circular address to the +governors of the different States, urging them to "forget their local +prejudices and policies; to make those mutual concessions which are +requisite to the general prosperity, and in some instances to sacrifice +their individual advantages to the interest of the community." Watch +how it guides him unerringly through the critical period of American +history which lies between the success of the Revolution and the +establishment of the nation, enabling him to avoid the pitfalls of +sectional and partisan strife, and to use his great influence with the +people in leading them out of the confusion of a weak confederacy into +the strength of an indissoluble union of sovereign States.</p> + +<p>See how he once more sets aside his personal preferences for a quiet +country life, and risks his already secure popularity, together with his +reputation for consistency, by obeying the voice which calls him to be a +candidate for the Presidency. See how he chooses for the cabinet and for +the Supreme Court, not an exclusive group of personal friends, but men +who can be trusted to serve the great cause of Union with fidelity and +power—Jefferson, Randolph, Hamilton, Knox, John Jay, Wilson, Cushing, +Rutledge. See how patiently and indomitably he gives himself to the toil +of office, deriving from his exalted station no gain "beyond the lustre +which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting +human felicity." See how he retires, at last, to the longed-for joys of +private life, confessing that his career has not been without errors of +judgment, beseeching the Almighty that they may bring no harm to his +country, and asking no other reward for his labors than to partake, "in +the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence of good laws under +a free government, the ever favorite object of my heart."</p> + +<p>Oh, sweet and stately words, revealing, through their calm reserve, the +inmost secret of a life that did not flare with transient enthusiasm but +glowed with unquenchable devotion to a cause! "The ever favorite object +of my heart"—how quietly, how simply he discloses the source and origin +of a sublime consecration, a lifelong heroism! Thus speaks the victor in +calm retrospect of the long battle. But if you would know the depth and +the intensity of the divine fire that burned within his breast you must +go back to the dark and icy days of Valley Forge, and hear him cry in +passion unrestrained: "If I know my own mind, I could offer myself a +living sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contribute +to the people's ease. I would be a living offering to the savage fury +and die by inches to save the people."</p> + +<p>"<i>The ever favorite object of my heart</i>!" I strike this note again and +again, insisting upon it, harping upon it; for it is the key-note of the +music. It is the capacity to find such an object in the success of the +people's cause, to follow it unselfishly, to serve it loyally, that +distinguishes the men who stood with Washington and who deserve to share +his fame. I read the annals of the Revolution, and I find everywhere +this secret and searching test dividing the strong from the weak, the +noble from the base, the heirs of glory from the captives of oblivion +and the inheritors of shame. It was the unwillingness to sink and forget +self in the service of something greater that made the failures and +wrecks of those tempestuous times, through which the single-hearted and +the devoted pressed on to victory and honor.</p> + +<p>Turn back to the battle of Saratoga. There were two Americans on that +field who suffered under a great personal disappointment: Philip +Schuyler, who was unjustly supplanted in command of the army by General +Gates; and Benedict Arnold, who was deprived by envy of his due share in +the glory of winning the battle. Schuyler forgot his own injury in +loyalty to the cause, offered to serve Gates in any capacity, and went +straight on to the end of his noble life giving all that he had to his +country. But in Arnold's heart the favorite object was not his country, +but his own ambition, and the wound which his pride received at Saratoga +rankled and festered and spread its poison through his whole nature, +until he went forth from the camp, "a leper white as snow."</p> + +<p>What was it that made Charles Lee, as fearless a man as ever lived, play +the part of a coward in order to hide his treason at the battle of +Monmouth? It was the inward eating corruption of that selfish vanity +which caused him to desire the defeat of an army whose command he had +wished but failed to attain. He had offered his sword to America for his +own glory, and when that was denied him, he withdrew the offering, and +died, as he had lived, to himself.</p> + +<p>What was it that tarnished the fame of Gates and Wilkinson and Burr and +Conway? What made their lives, and those of men like them, futile and +inefficient compared with other men whose natural gifts were less? It +was the taint of dominant selfishness that ran through their careers, +now hiding itself, now breaking out in some act of malignity or +treachery. Of the common interest they were reckless, provided they +might advance their own. Disappointed in that "ever favorite object of +their hearts," they did not hesitate to imperil the cause in whose +service they were enlisted.</p> + +<p>Turn to other cases, in which a charitable judgment will impute no +positive betrayal of trusts, but a defect of vision to recognize the +claim of the higher ideal. Tory or Revolutionist a man might be, +according to his temperament and conviction; but where a man begins +with protests against tyranny and ends with subservience to it, we look +for the cause. What was it that separated Joseph Galloway from Francis +Hopkinson? It was Galloway's opinion that, while the struggle for +independence might be justifiable, it could not be successful, and the +temptation of a larger immediate reward under the British crown than +could ever be given by the American Congress in which he had once +served. What was it that divided the Rev. Jacob Duché from the Rev. +John Witherspoon? It was Duché's fear that the cause for which he had +prayed so eloquently in the first Continental Congress was doomed after +the capture of Philadelphia, and his unwillingness to go down with that +cause instead of enjoying the comfortable fruits of his native wit and +eloquence in an easy London chaplaincy. What was it that cut William +Franklin off from his professedly prudent and worldly wise old father, +Benjamin? It was the luxurious and benumbing charm of the royal +governorship of New Jersey.</p> + +<p>"Professedly prudent" is the phrase that I have chosen to apply to +Benjamin Franklin. For the one thing that is clear, as we turn to look +at him and the other men who stood with Washington, is that, whatever +their philosophical professions may have been, they were not controlled +by prudence. They were really imprudent, and at heart willing to take +all risks of poverty and death in a struggle whose cause was just though +its issue was dubious. If it be rashness to commit honor and life and +property to a great adventure for the general good, then these men were +rash to the verge of recklessness. They refused no peril, they withheld +no sacrifice, in the following of their ideal.</p> + +<p>I hear John Dickinson saying: "It is not our duty to leave wealth to our +children, but it is our duty to leave liberty to them. We have counted +the cost of this contest, and we find nothing so dreadful as voluntary +slavery." I see Samuel Adams, impoverished, living upon a pittance, +hardly able to provide a decent coat for his back, rejecting with scorn +the offer of a profitable office, wealth, a title even, to win him from +his allegiance to the cause of America. I see Robert Morris, the wealthy +merchant, opening his purse and pledging his credit to support the +Revolution, and later devoting all his fortune and his energy to restore +and establish the financial honor of the Republic, with the memorable +words, "The United States may command all that I have, except my +integrity." I hear the proud John Adams saying to his wife, "I have +accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have +consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and the ruin of our children"; +and I hear her reply, with the tears running down her face, "Well, I am +willing in this cause to run all risks with you, and be ruined with you, +if you are ruined," I see Benjamin Franklin, in the Congress of 1776, +already past his seventieth year, prosperous, famous, by far the most +celebrated man in America, accepting without demur the difficult and +dangerous mission to France, and whispering to his friend, Dr. Rush, "I +am old and good for nothing, but as the store-keepers say of their +remnants of cloth, 'I am but a fag-end, and you may have me for what +you please.'"</p> + +<p>Here is a man who will illustrate and prove, perhaps better than any +other of those who stood with Washington, the point at which I am +aiming. There was none of the glamour of romance about old Ben Franklin. +He was shrewd, canny, humorous. The chivalric Southerners disliked his +philosophy, and the solemn New-Englanders mistrusted his jokes. He made +no extravagant claims for his own motives, and some of his ways were not +distinctly ideal. He was full of prudential proverbs, and claimed to be +a follower of the theory of enlightened self-interest. But there was not +a faculty of his wise old head which he did not put at the service of +his country, nor was there a pulse of his slow and steady heart which +did not beat loyal to the cause of freedom.</p> + +<p>He forfeited profitable office and sure preferment under the crown, for +hard work, uncertain pay, and certain peril in behalf of the colonies. +He followed the inexorable logic, step by step, which led him from the +natural rights of his countrymen to their liberty, from their liberty +to their independence. He endured with a grim humor the revilings of +those whom he called "malevolent critics and bug-writers." He broke with +his old and dear associates in England, writing to one of them,</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"You and I were long friends; you are now my enemy and I am Yours,</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">B. Franklin."</span><br> + +<p>He never flinched or faltered at any sacrifice of personal ease or +interest to the demands of his country. His patient, skilful, laborious +efforts in France did as much for the final victory of the American +cause as any soldier's sword. He yielded his own opinions in regard to +the method of making the treaty of peace with England, and thereby +imperilled for a time his own prestige. He served as president of +Pennsylvania three times, devoting all his salary to public +benefactions. His influence in the Constitutional Convention was +steadfast on the side of union and harmony, though in many things he +differed from the prevailing party. His voice was among those who hailed +Washington as the only possible candidate for the Presidency. His last +public act was a petition to Congress for the abolition of slavery. At +his death the government had not yet settled his accounts in its +service, and his country was left apparently his debtor; which, in a +sense still larger and deeper, she must remain as long as liberty +endures and union triumphs in the Republic.</p> + +<p>Is not this, after all, the root of the whole matter? Is not this the +thing that is vitally and essentially true of all those great men, +clustering about Washington, whose fame we honor and revere with his? +They all left the community, the commonwealth, the race, in debt to +them. This was their purpose and the ever-favorite object of their +hearts. They were deliberate and joyful creditors. Renouncing the maxim +of worldly wisdom which bids men "get all you can and keep all you get," +they resolved rather to give all they had to advance the common cause, +to use every benefit conferred upon them in the service of the general +welfare, to bestow upon the world more than they received from it, and +to leave a fair and unblotted account of business done with life which +should show a clear balance in their favor.</p> + +<p>Thus, in brief outline, and in words which seem poor and inadequate, I +have ventured to interpret anew the story of Washington and the men who +stood with him: not as a stirring ballad of battle and danger, in which +the knights ride valiantly, and are renowned for their mighty strokes at +the enemy in arms; not as a philosophic epic, in which the development +of a great national idea is displayed, and the struggle of opposing +policies is traced to its conclusion; but as a drama of the eternal +conflict in the soul of man between self-interest in its Protean forms, +and loyalty to the right, service to a cause, allegiance to an ideal.</p> + +<p>Those great actors who played in it have passed away, but the same drama +still holds the stage. The drop-curtain falls between the acts; the +scenery shifts; the music alters; but the crisis and its issues are +unchanged, and the parts which you and I play are assigned to us by our +own choice of "the ever favorite object of our hearts."</p> + +<p>Men tell us that the age of ideals is past, and that we are now come to +the age of expediency, of polite indifference to moral standards, of +careful attention to the bearing of different policies upon our own +personal interests. Men tell us that the rights of man are a poetic +fiction, that democracy has nothing in it to command our allegiance +unless it promotes our individual comfort and prosperity, and that the +whole duty of a citizen is to vote with his party and get an office for +himself, or for some one who will look after him. Men tell us that to +succeed means to get money, because with that all other good things can +be secured. Men tell us that the one thing to do is to promote and +protect the particular trade, or industry, or corporation in which we +have a share: the laws of trade will work out that survival of the +fittest which is the only real righteousness, and if we survive that +will prove that we are fit. Men tell us that all beyond this is +phantasy, dreaming, Sunday-school politics: there is nothing worth +living for except to get on in the world; and nothing at all worth +dying for, since the age of ideals is past.</p> + +<p>It is past indeed for those who proclaim, or whisper, or in their hearts +believe, or in their lives obey, this black gospel. And what is to +follow? An age of cruel and bitter jealousies between sections and +classes; of hatted and strife between the Haves and the Have-nots; of +futile contests between parties which have kept their names and confused +their principles, so that no man may distinguish them except as the Ins +and Outs. An age of greedy privilege and sullen poverty, of blatant +luxury and curious envy, of rising palaces and vanishing homes, of +stupid frivolity and idiotic publicomania; in which four hundred gilded +fribbles give monkey-dinners and Louis XV. revels, while four million +ungilded gossips gape at them and read about them in the newspapers. An +age when princes of finance buy protection from the representatives of a +fierce democracy; when guardians of the savings which insure the lives +of the poor, use them as a surplus to pay for the extravagances of the +rich; and when men who have climbed above their fellows on golden +ladders, tremble at the crack of the blackmailer's whip and come down at +the call of an obscene newspaper. An age when the python of political +corruption casts its "rings" about the neck of proud cities and +sovereign States, and throttles honesty to silence and liberty to death. +It is such an age, dark, confused, shameful, that the sceptic and the +scorner must face, when they turn their backs upon those ancient shrines +where the flames of faith and integrity and devotion are flickering like +the deserted altar-fires of a forsaken worship.</p> + +<p>But not for us who claim our heritage in blood and spirit from +Washington and the men who stood with him,—not for us of other tribes +and kindred who</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"Have found a fatherland upon this shore,"</span><br> + +<p>and learned the meaning of manhood beneath the shelter of liberty,—not +for us, nor for our country, that dark apostasy, that dismal outlook! We +see the palladium of the American ideal—goddess of the just eye, the +unpolluted heart, the equal hand—standing as the image of Athene stood +above the upper streams of Simois:</p> + +"It stood, and sun and moonshine rained their light<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">On the pure columns of its glen-built hall.</span><br> +Backward and forward rolled the waves of fight<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Round Troy—but while this stood Troy could not fall."</span><br> + +<p>We see the heroes of the present conflict, the men whose allegiance is +not to sections but to the whole people, the fearless champions of fair +play. We hear from the chair of Washington a brave and honest voice +which cries that our industrial problems must be solved not in the +interest of capital, nor of labor, but of the whole people. We believe +that the liberties which the heroes of old won with blood and sacrifice +are ours to keep with labor and service.</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">"All that our fathers wrought With true prophetic thought, Must be</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">defended."</span><br> + +<p>No privilege that encroaches upon those liberties is to be endured. No +lawless disorder that imperils them is to be sanctioned. No class that +disregards or invades them is to be tolerated.</p> + +<p>There is a life that is worth living now, as it was worth living in the +former days, and that is the honest life, the useful life, the unselfish +life, cleansed by devotion to an ideal. There is a battle that is worth +fighting now, as it was worth fighting then, and that is the battle for +justice and equality. To make our city and our State free in fact as +well as in name; to break the rings that strangle real liberty, and to +keep them broken; to cleanse, so far as in our power lies, the fountains +of our national life from political, commercial, and social corruption; +to teach our sons and daughters, by precept and example, the honor of +serving such a country as America—that is work worthy of the finest +manhood and womanhood. The well born are those who are born to do that +work. The well bred are those who are bred to be proud of that work. The +well educated are those who see deepest into the meaning and the +necessity of that work. Nor shall their labor be for naught, nor the +reward of their sacrifice fail them. For high in the firmament of human +destiny are set the stars of faith in mankind, and unselfish courage, +and loyalty to the ideal; and while they shine, the Americanism of +Washington and the men who stood with him shall never, never die.</p> +<br> + +<p>THE END</p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Americanism of Washington, by Henry Van Dyke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AMERICANISM OF WASHINGTON *** + +***** This file should be named 11192-h.htm or 11192-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/9/11192/ + +Produced by Connie Boitano and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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