The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-07-23
SCRANTON TRIBUNE-FRlDAY MORNING. as 1897.

- " IN ~ II Ihlbh "ObLN i
violent and with denunciation hot upon
him for allowing Jay to sell out his
country to the English and for con-
Quoting the administration on pro-
English methods.
GREATLY ABUSED.
Neither Cleveland nor Grant in their
two terms in the White House has
been the object of epithets more vim
dictive and heated than fell upon
Washington in his second term from the
opposition press. It is sometimes said
that when he "swore like an angel" at
Lee in the field Monmouth was the
only time he was known to be profane.
There was doubtless more than one
occasion in the Market street house
when office-seekers were pestering him.
and when the newspaper editors and
the pamphleteers were daily inventing
charge" and when the French agi-
tators were stirring UP sedition and
riot on the streets that he could not
restrain his naturally strong temper.
We know, at least, how he turned on
that rascal Freneau" for his editorials,
and how, after reading Edmund Ran
dolph's pamphlet-which Randolph af-
terward apologized for-he exclaimed
that Randolph "by the eternal God is
the damnedest liar on the face of the
earth" and nearly upset the table by
his side when his clenched fist came
down upon 1t. 1t Is only to be Won
dered that he did not repeat these per-
formances often. Tom Paine, whom
he had befriended, published pamph-
let in which he accused him of being
"treacherous in private friendship and
"a hypocrite in private life" of being
either IAN apostate or an impostor'
and "the patron of fraud" and all be-
cause Tom Paine couldn't get an office.
Calender squirted his mephitic juices
over him as double traitor" and even
Jefferson was thought to be behind this
intolerably filthy scoundrel. Benjamin
Franklin Bache day after day in the
Aurora engaged in a systematic jour-
nalistic crusade against Washington,
belttling, ridiculing and berating him
as a farcical patriot and an ostenta-
tious old humbug in disguise, demand
| ing personal incense and idolatry of
those around him. Duane, with all his
vehemence outdid Bache in this spe-
cies of attacks, and F'reneau had pros
tituted his talents to the same miser-
able defamation. Any man who read
the Philadelphia newspapers from 1893
to the spring of 1897 would have been
excused If he had come to the conclu
sion that the first president of the
| United States was a pompous, but
weak minded tool of Hamilton's, or a
treacherous tyrant bent on breaking
down the Constitution and the laws
| IT,. 4 4 l1xN.~ 90. l.
country against English diplomacy.
HIS GREATNESS.
The test of Washington's character
is that you may place the microscope
to it and examine his life from one end
TO the other without lowering him.
You may discover that he was pock
marked on the face and wore false
teeth; that he was constrained to tell
his mother that she should not come to
the table unless dressed for It; that he
came to the conclusion that he could
not live peascefully in house with
two women under the same roof that
that he was the richest public man of
his day, being nearly a millionaire; or,
4 as we would now call him, pluto
crat," when he died; that he sometimes
sat silent and frigid at table, to the
awe of every one in the household; |;
that he would take his daily constitu-
tional down Market street to the wharf
without uttering a word or recogniz-
ing any one; that when he was called
| upon to speak he would sometimes
tremble 50 that he would excite pity;
that 1t was not until he became a mid
dle-aged man that he could spell and
write with anything like ease and cor
rectness-these and other things like
them you will find, and they do not
spoil his excellence. You may ransack
his whole life and you will be unable
to discover a trace of serious dupli-
city or of a downright falsehood, the
Rev. Mason l.. Weems being unques-
tionably right in his deductions from
the famous cherry tree legend; and
with that sincerity went justice, mag
nanimity and a public probity that was
absolutely pure and infiexible.