The age-herald., 1898-03-12

and dispute. These two, men stand before the world and no dotibt will for all time,
 as distinctly representative characters in
 government-the one as the founder of a
 republic, the other as an architect Of an
 empire. They seem to have come itno
 their environments as part of d vast plan. We cannot well conceive of any
 thing more appropriate than Washington fighting the Indians and French and then turning his knowledge to account in war with England And who but Napoleon could have comprehended the discordant clements of the French revolution, gath cred them together for his personal ends, and in nine years, through the forms of temporary and deiinitiye consulates, evolve an empire? Make the periods of birth CO., existent and change the babes in the cradles, and would there have been the same results? Certainly not. There would
 have been neither republic empire.
 Napoleon would have been dead failure
 here, and Washingto devoid of the qual-
 ties of despotism, could not have brought
 peace out of the tumult in France. Ma
 poleon was perfectly right In saying that the idea of a republic, with vice so deep rooted and prevalent, was absurd.
 That the French empire would have been l impossible to Washington and the Ameri- can republic impossible to Napoleon is as l plainly evident from their traits in boy hood as from their achievements in ma turity, and the boy whose environment is in harmony with his faculties gives a true glimpse of the man. Washington was
 born to large estates of beautiful and en-
 chanting location He was a second son.
 Napoleon was also a second son. if the
 date of his birth be right, and his family was poor. Washington had some school
 ing, but not enough to interfere seriously
 with the freedom of his native talent The
 cast of his mind was mathematical. So
 was Napoleon's. Indeed, young Wash
 ington was quite an accomplished mathe-
 matician for a Virginian of that day, and
 when he quit school at 16 was well ad-
 vanced in geometry. The estate left him
 by his father was large and fertile, located
 on the Potomac not far above the bay.
 It would seem that such an inheritance
 would determine, without reflection, the
 choice of a young man in the matter of
 an occupation. Right here we see the
 secret of Washington's character. which
 was an imperious stubbornness against the
 enticements of a, placid and secure life. He was ambitious for another develop ment than that of the farm. His voun- tarily assuming the hardships of sur veyor, through forest and over mountains in winter, was triumph of the mental over the physical. But that kind of oc- cupation was inadequate in scope and
 character Washington ambitious to
 be a soldier, and as nothing offered in this
 direction except the British navy he would
 have entered that had not his mother over-
 
 tary division of Virginia was offered him he eagerly accepted it, was made major by Dinwiddle, and sent to treat with the
 French, and later, with the rank of colonel,
 marched against them at Fort Duouesne and opened up the long war between
 France and England.
 The military spirit, of course, did not dominate Washington as it did Napoleon. Considering the men and their conditions it was impossible that 1t should. The American fought for justice while the Cor
 scan, or the Italian, whichever he may be,
 fought for glory and from pure love of the
 pastime. The principles of the men are
 reflected in their respective institutions. the republic and the empire. We see also there the principles of the two boys. Wash ington participated in the liberty of his playmates, was amiaa)le and slow to re- sent, but would upon occasion defend him. self and the right. Napoleon cared noth- ing for the strength of his single arm, and
 made but faint resistance to the sights
 put upon him at school "I will do these
 French all the mischief can,' he said in
 his wrath In that he declared himself.
 He was a mischief maker to the end of
 his life. In the three or four years of
 peace that he permitted the world he was
 but recuperating and maturing his ener-
 gies for the carnage of battlefields and the
 sweep of empire. He scorned the author
 ity of the academy, and criticised the im- perfections of it's professors. and that Is why he was commissioned for the army before his time. Tn Napoleon's contempt for authority. together with the power that came after for monopolzng 1t himself