The Americanism of Washington | Page 7

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.
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,

"You and I were long friends; you are now my enemy and I am Yours,
B. Franklin."
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.
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.
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.
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."
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