McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1885-03-19

of granite from every state and terri
tory of the whole realm chiseled with
appropriate inscriptions.
Great blocks added from many ma
tions under the whole Heaven-they
too adorned with sculptured notices
appropriate to the man, and to the ad-
miring people that gave the massive
imperishable blocks.
Thus too, cities, corporations, So
cieties, institutes, temples of learning
and of science; every and all sending
their adamantine gift, with appropri-
ate motto and symbol to do honor to
the man, exalted, the
FIRST OF ALL HUMAN KIND!
The treasures-the millions OF
money that it required to build
whence came they?
From the treasury of the nation;
from the treasures of states and of
cities; from the funds of associations
and of societies; from the banks and
bankers; from the rich who gave of
their millions; from the poor who
gave of their poverty; from the widow
and orphan, who gave the pence water
ed by their tears; from the boy and
girl, who had saved their small coins
from buying the toy, that it might go
into the fabric of the monument; from
these treasures of all the civilized peo-
pies of the globe. All wanted some
possession in the fabric that was to
commemorate the virtues of the model
man of all mankind.
Was it said of him that s'He was first
in the hearts of his countrymenp" Here
was the proof that he was first in the
hearts of all human kind!
Meanwhile, the most skilled archi-
tects and engineers, exhausted all
their skill in advancing the work and
in placing every boulder and CARRYING
up every abutment, and angle, and
line, in accordance with the most i'm
pregnable laws of gravitation and
mechanics; laying the level and the
square, and extending the compass;
and suspending the line and the plum
met, on every perpendicular and angle
and horizontal, that all things might
accord, and be in harmony with the
laws of the infinite Master Builder
when he laid the foundation of the
EARTH" and fastened the corner stone
thereof, and stretched the line upon it.
''When the morning stars sang to-
gether and all the sons of God shouted
for joy!'
Thus year by year the stupenduous
fabric went up, adamant and iron upon
layer, as high as st. Peters, as high as
the colossus, as high as the towers
of Babylon and the spires of the Tenn
pie of Bel, still higher than them all;
than the pyramids, twenty feet higher
than any structure ever before reared
by the prowess, the wealth, the skill
and resources of man.
AS the name and fame and character
of Washington assembled above the alti-
tude ever reache by any mere man.;
so his monument should most fittingly
Over-tOp every structure reared by the
hand, and the resources and the genius
of man.
And how came it to pass that we of
America, should have given to the
world the greatest of all mankind?
All, who can tell? Was it because
he had so many of the best models of
the ages before him from which to copy,
and absorbing the best from all, he
produced in himself the combination
surprising all the single and meagre
illustrations of greatness scattered
among so many, by concentrating all
within one, and that one himself? But
this cannot be for one hundred years
have since produced their generations
of men, and these have bad all the ex-
amples that had Washington, and
Washington himself besides, fromwhich
to copy, but they have not produced
his equal, much less his superior. And
thus it is that our hero remains the
model man of all the world without q
single rival.
But he was not such man as Mar
shall made him to be in 'Marshalrs
Life of Washington The kind of
man that Chief Justice Marshall paint
ed him, was an impossible human be-
ing, rather like ''molten and craven
image" of some monstrous production
that idolaters worship than a possible
man. 1t has gradually come to the
surface in those detached geographic
al scraps that have appeared, that
Washington had strong passions.
most infiexible will, and that his lam
guage when in the very torrent and
whirlwind of his passion, swept away
the barriers of the third command
ment, and his anger was terrible.
Indeed, the great Washington was
very human. Ii he had not been he
never could have reached his unequaled
proportions. But it was in the clos
ing of his public career that he proved
himself to be master of himself and
of all human weaknesses. 1t was I'M
doubleday in his power to have adj
vanced into the highest place of her
edltory rulership, kingship, lmperia-
torship. Perhaps he could have seat
ed himself upon an entailed throne
He could have done whatsoever he
chose to do. 1t was then that he chose
to do what proved him to be the very.
greatest of the great, for he chose to
lay down all office and all power that
he had welded more greatly than ruler
or commander ever had done. After