Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1906-02-20
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
His Greatness Has Been Recognized
and landed EVeryWhere.

HIS Greatness Has been Recognized
and Landed Everywhere.
The human trait of hero worship has
this disadvantage, thGt it often exalts its
heroes into the clouds aud cuts them off
from human sympathy by making demi-
gods of them. No man of modern times
has suffered from idealization so much
as Washington. We all acknowledge that
he was the greatest of Americans, that
his patriotism was of the purest and his
character of the noblest, and that we alb
sOlutely owe our national independence
20 his consummate generalship. Yet the
homage paid to his greatness in these
days is of the head rather than of the
heart.
Excessive idealization has eliminated
the warm human heart from our idea of
him and has left in place of the real
Washington a sort Of alabaster image or
only a steel engraving. This is a wrong
both to him and to ourselves, but it seems
to have been inevitable in view of the I'M
deniable greatness and nobility of his
character. His chief fault, so to speak,
was in being too perfect. lie was so
high above the ordinary man that hero
worship was bound to strip away all the
natural human traits and leave nothing
but sort of demigod exaled on a pedes-
tai to be worshiped from afar off. In
recent years this unfortunate process has
had its natural reaction, and the pious
rhapsOdies of Weems have been partly re-
placed by biographies which allow the
lonely hero at least a few human limita-
tiOns and peccadlloes. 1t is even said
that he hurled strong language at Lee in
the battle of Monmouth, but men are
still writing books to disprove this evil
dence that he could lapse into justifiable
human passion. For the present, then,
we must be content with a more or less
defied Washington.
If any man was ever justly idealized
that man was George Washington. But
for him the country could not have won
its independence, but for him it could not
have formed its union, and but for him
it could not have set its new government
into motion. He alone could bind North
and South together. He embodied the
qualities and virtues which won the adj
miration of the austere New England
colonists as we'll as of the aristicratic
Virginians. He had the practical knowl-
edge and the rare balance Of judgment
which could cope with every emergency
and render justice in every dispute. He
could be eloquent with the Virginians
and devout with the Puritans. and could
command the respect and devotion of all
who came within reach of his unselish
and fascinating character. Modest, gen
erous, just, forceful, fearless, of absolute
integrity, declining all pay for his price
less patriotic services. what wonder that
his soldiers offered to crown him king
or that, after his panied and angry re-
fusal, the nation made him not only IFS
President but its canonized hero forever?
Beyond doubt the greatest of Wash
ington's many services was rendered as .
soldier. John Adams and Congress said
the colonists were free, and there left the
matter. Washington and his soldiers
made the Declaration of Independence a
fact, instead of a mere assertion. 1t was
a comparatively small body of heroes that
presented freedom and nationality to the
thirteen colonies. The fcats of general
ship by which Washington achieved this
end have never been surpassed in the his
tory of war.
From the days of his youthful but dan
gerous mission to the French frontier on
the Ohio, and from the time of his warn
ings to Braddock, he showed an unusual
grasp of the art of war. He knew the
value of striking quickly as well as Grant
did. Napoleon never struck more swift
ly or suddenly in his brilliant Italian
campaign than Washington did on that
Christmas night in 1TT6 at Trenton. Nor
was Napoleon's followiug-up blow more
emphatic than Washingtons attack on
Princeton a week later. 1t was not a
mere complimentary platitude that Fred
erick the Great uttered when he sent his
kindly message from the Oldest general
in Europe to the greatest general in the
world 1t was not a play of empty
words in which the President of the Con
tinental Congress said to Washington
when he resigned his commission: The
glory of your virtues will not terminate
with your military command; it will con-
tlnue TO animate remotest ages"
This was the man in honor of whose
death Napoleon ordered all the standards
and flags Of the French republic to be
bound with Grape for ten days. This was
the respected enemy for whom a great
British fleet hung its flags at half mast
when he passed away. The grief of the
young nation over his death was heartfelt
and human enough theh. Since that time
the tributes to his memory have beer
such as no other man of ancient or mod
ern times has commanded. Washington
greatness. unlike thai of Lincoln, has
been recognized and lauded by all the
European nations. His name is a house
hold word in every land that has dream
ell of liberty. TIC every school boy in thC
United States it is the synonym of the
highest American manhood. If his use al
n Law model has somewhat dehumanizeC
Washington, it has ennobled the ideals
and lives of the men of the nation. The