Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-02-23
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
Practical Lessons for the Politicians of
To-Day Drawn from His Life.
The Washingtonian System and the Spells
System; the One Democratic, the
Other Aristocratic.

CHICAGO, ILL.,, Feb. Following is
synopsis of the speech Of Hon. Jacob
D. Cox of Cincinnati before the Union
League club of Chicago on the occasion
OF the club Is observance of Washington 5
birthday:
Intelligent visitors to America from
foreign countries have often noted the
''good humor' of our people. In the
crush about the doors of concert hall ,
IN a crowded streetcar or omnibus, in a
casual street gathering, or in any assem-
blage where excitement runs high, and
where European experience would lead
them to expect bad blood or violence,
they have pretty uniformly testified TO
the orderliness and good temper which
has seemed to them remarkable. It has
been so often spoken of by competent OBJ
servers, that it is fair to assume it is true.
When people has, by long possession of
sovereign power under democratic insti-
| buttons, gained an assured confidence
that it can surely and promptly right any
serious wrongs, it becomes tolerant of
wrongs that are not serious, and will
even suffer itself to be imposed upon IN
minor matters, with this good-humored
patience which treats them as hardly
worth ''malling q fuss about.
The most striking exhibition of this
faith that things will come right in the
long run is seen in the way the results OF
elections are taken. Partisan heat may
run never so high, and it may have
seemed as if the fate of the nation hung
~ ~ hnIo I114 = p Il ofA [I..
election, when the vote is announced, ali
is calm again. 1t becomas political in
stinct in public men not to push things
faster than is sustained by pronounced
public opinion.
Among the conservative traits Of hui
man character the self-poise which is not
unbalanced by heat and ex-
element is one of the rarest.
Beyond all question, Washing
ton combined more than any other man
in our history the elements which make
every American look to him as the ideal
patriot.
Washington s birthday is then most
appropriate anniversary on which Ameri-
cans may balance their political books
and soberly reckoning up the profit and
loss, inquire what solid progress they are
making. We are looking over the verge
of a new political epoch to begin with the
first days of the new season. AT such
time the father of his country looms
grandly before us, challenging the sim
cerity of our adherence to his precepts
and his practice. How can we
dredth anniversary of his inaugural
ton, how many of the administrations
which have filed the century have been
ruled by his spirit? How can we help
asking wistfuIly whether that spirit shall
rule the next? How can we fail to re-
solve, for ourselves at least, that our own
action as citizens and as men shall ap-
proach nearer to the model we all unite
in revering?
Washington was the type of the nom
partisan citizen The country as
whole was the object of his love, and
parties were, to him, only subordinate
means of reaching common advantage.
The unity of the nation and the estab-
lishment of republican government by
the constitution, these had seemed to him
the essentials for which no labor was too
great and no zeal Overstrafned. But when
these were secure, in his faith that the
people would prove worthy of self-gov-
eminent, he believed that the strife be-
tween Federalists and Republicans was
of little real moment.
I am very far from believing that it is
either possible or desirable TO abolish DO
litIcal parties Organized methods of
united action by q multitude of people are
so necessary that we may say Of them, Us
Robespierre patronizingly said of the
Deity, if they did not exist we should
have to create them. There are times
when the most momentous of results de-
pend on party success. The patriots of
l77e saw such time, and we saw it
again in 1861. But when period Of
CONFUSION is over, we need to learn
again the lesson that in peaceful times
parties differ only about the details of adj
ministration. 1t is question of R little
more or less taxation, an expenditure of
revenue little more or less wasteful,
method in economics a little more or less
scientific.
1 am happy III the belief that the five
and twenty years which have passed
since the close of our civil war have been
SO strong and swift in their educating
power that the survivors of that great
struggle and the children of the new gen.
Grafton that outnumbers the old, are SOL
idly ana earnestly in accord in their de-
votion to the Union and in their satisfac-
ton that slavery is among the things of
the past.
WASHINGTON g BROAD ANIERICANIsM.
If we could Faithfully reproduce the
situation OF the American colonies in
1875, we should realize that the separa-
ton between them, small as they were,
was much greater than there is now
between the Atlantic and Pacific states.
The obstacles to frequent communica-
ton were greater, the interchange of
news and of opinions was immeasurably
less, the local prejudices and misunder-
standings were necessarily greater. 1t
was under such circumstances that the
Continental congress sent Washington,
Virginian and n comparatively unknown
and untried man, to assume command
of New England army collected for the
siege of Boston. The result went far to
justify our fOrefatherS' holy faith in spe-
cial providences, for in the circumstances,
ninety-nine men in a hundred would
have failed. Looking closely into ii We
see that Washington 5 military ability.