US Presidency
1925

The complaint has been many times uttered that Washington was no nearly a paragon of abilities and virtues that it is impossible to see through the aura of perfections to the real, simple, human man. But there is a phase of Washington's career which, fully studied and understood, will give us the picture of him as one of the most human men in history. To inform ourselves of this human side, we need only to know of the long years of arduous preparation which preceded the historic event which took place here 150 years ago to-day. From his earliest manhood, Washington's life had been a part of great affairs. Many of those affairs were vastly greater and more significant than he himself, or indeed anybody else, could possibly have realized at the time. He had come up through a schooling of strangely mingled adversities and successes. He had devoted hard and disappointing years to activities which resulted, aside from the training which he derived, in little more than hopeless futilities.