The Americanism of Washington | Page 8

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.
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.
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
"Have found a fatherland upon this shore,"
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:
"It stood, and sun and moonshine rained their light On the pure
columns of its glen-built hall. Backward and forward rolled the waves
of fight Round Troy--but while this stood Troy could not fall."
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.
"All that our fathers wrought With true prophetic thought, Must be
defended."
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.
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