The Delawarean. [volume] (Dover, Del.) 1859-1927, 1900-04-14
SONS OF. THE
REVOLUTION.
Nc Aristocracy Among Them Ex-
cept i'm Sentiment.
DESCENDANTS OF STURDY SIRES
Societies are Formed to Keep Alive
the Spirit Which Animated the
Men of Colonial Days.

NkbA VI OokOulA1 lays.
The more serious and important side
of such patriotic societies as the Sons
and Daughters of the Revolution is mot
sufficiently accentuated. They are too
much looked upon by the outside pub
lie as though they were mere associa-
tions for the preservation of genealogi-
cal trees; and the paragraphs in the
newspapens-in our country the most
irreverent and witty of their species
do not hesitate to refer to them as ex-
amples of what John G. Sail called
American arrstoracy.'
But this is unjust. Moreover, good
natured as the ridicule may be, the
effect of ridicule is always to belittle.
Again, there is nothing particularly
aristocratic about these patriotic So
cieties. The soldiers of rs were, as
a rule, sons of soil; they represented
the virile virtues of new people; they
We're emigrants or the sons of emil
grants. They represented the sturdy
spirit of individualism which had been
sent TO them from generations of Eng
lish ancestry; or if they We're Irish or
French, they We're in love with liberty
But it was not a question of class The
Tories belonged, as a rule, to the best"
people socially. They stood for privi-
lege; and an aristocracy which is mere
ly of blood, which can mot hold legal
privileges, is no aristocracy, except in
sentiment The Tories were for the
legal privilege, for the title in the gift
of the king, for primogeniture. and the
entailed landed estate The men who
fought under Washington We're of the
people They had no title or land to
gain by victory. The question of So
cial equality did not trouble them; they
knew that if political equality were
gained the social side of things would
take care of itself. 1t was natural that
every man who understood that real
aristocracy means privilege should
have arrayed himself ON the side of the
Tories if he were aristocratic by ten
(lency, and that the agents of the crown
and those who had close connection
with noble families should have de-
clared against the popular cause.
1t is clear that the spirit of the men
of '76 was the spirit of the honest
middle classes-of the thoughtful
working man-of the small landowner
that spirit which has nullifed the
aristocracy of privilege in every coun-
try 1t is spirit of which all Ameri-
cans are proud. When it disappears
the end of the Republic will have come |
The Sons and Daughters of the Revo-
luton represent, then, one of vital es-
sences in the development of the I
American character. They are anti
autocratic and anti aristocracy. They
have done more to foster true patriot
ism than amy other organization They
have made the name Revolution" un-
derstood. i'm the American sense. in
which it is not capricious revolt, or
an assertion of morbid restlessness. or
W IL SSNtAo1i VI ioN. 4iCy ira w tANllCQ
everywhere a new interest in American
history. They have helped to show to
the country that George Washington
is nearer to us than was suspected;
that he was not a demigod laundering
a reverent populace; but a man, beset
with all the difficulties and temptations
of a man-hampered, illuminated
misunderstood, hated In word be-
set by all the forces that oppose the
good. There was one, however, from
which he was absolutely free-and
this was doubt of the justice of AL
mighty God. BY faith he conquered
Whether ones grandfather or great
grandfather left the pillow, or the forge,
or the farm, or the plantation, or the
shop to fight at Valley Forge, or
Brandywine, or Yorktown, or whether
he was. an emigrant of yesterday or OF
fifty years ago-one ought to consider
1T a matter of duty to cooperate with
these societies whose members strive
to preserve not only the records, hut
the traditions of liberty.