The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1903-02-24
GEORGE WASHINGTON.


He was born on Feb. 22nd and
his birthday is observed gener-
ally throughout the United Stat
es. This event each year is com
memorated each year in Challis
by masquerade ball, and this
year the ball was held on Friday
night. Feb. Goth, as the 22nd fell
on Sunday. Let us for few
moments review the life of this
noble statesman and general.
w ashington lives because
gratitude lives and appreciation
grows. The passing years re-
move from sight all short com
ings of any doer of great service,
leaving in sight only those broad
details of purpose and of accom-.
plishment that made the service
possible. In fact, remoteness in
time gives true proportion to a
Mans work and shows it in re-
lation to the work of others of
his time. Patience is therefore
as s.rely tried by those who look
for flaws with a microscope as it
is by those who raise a man to
the height of demi-god just be-
cause he has done an unselfish
work and done it well.
A round Washington there
gathers each year less of idolat-
rous exaltation, less of silly de-
traction; but more genuine ap-
probation and calm estimate of
his value to our people.
Seen from this distance he is
known to have had the eye of a
seer, that could look forward
over generations, roughly read
ing the lines of our national life
in the palm of eternal Good. He
had a faith to see in the weak
ling, loose-jointed child of Inde-
pendence Day the promise of a
giants strength to be restrained
by wisdom and guided by devo-
tion into a field of endeavor wild
er, richer, than the greatest do
main ever known up to Wash
ington's time.
His prescience makes him
stand in our estimate so much as
a head and shoulders over his
compeers, noble and devoted
though many of them were. He
knew that the end of the war
was only the beginning of thing
of far greater moment. The
thirteen then lolled back after
their labors as if the new born
nation would live without furth'
er care; in fact, unity of national
action in a time of peace was
further from their thought than
it had been when war was piling
up its clouds of fate along the
Atlantic horizon.
In the hush that followed the
turmoil his ripened judgment
turned to problems that needed
to be worked out. His letters tc
his friends were clarion calls tC
other forms of activity. He die
not believe that the narrowed
ground represented a crop unit
seed-sowing, reaping and gar
nering had gone forward to com
pletion. His own heart turned
to the sweetness of quiet, country
life and broad minded schemes
; for highways and canals. Along
, the route of Braddock his plar
, for a western highway across th'
! Alleghanies was developed, ant
his hearts dream for a Nationa
University was endowed in par
} by his Canal stock. 1t seem
more than coincidence that thi
dream will now come true at thu
) liberal hands of a foreign-borl
! man enriched by the metalli,
j wealth of the Alleghanies an'
by the demands that came from
the very growth of enterpris
that Washington foresaw.
n ever for long however di
theories of development and hi
own beloved agriculture exclud
from his mind the larger purpos
of nation. He knew that no
alone wealth, not alone territory
not alone inhabitants can make
p people great, but that great
ness in it's truest sense come
from free men with free mind
to think, free souls to worship
IL and free hands to work out eI
terprises; yet all nicely temper
J. ed and restrained by constitr
tional obligations freely assumed
: Good citizenship as exempt
fed in Washington consists NOR
in constructive work than in dt
structive work. The clearin
away of evil conditions is goo
S but the utilization of the cleart
J, ground is better.
It II 'hus it was that Washingto
u saved the nation twice-frst, b
B. wearing out its enemies in frui