Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1906-02-22
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
His Greatness Has Been Recognized
NIL Lnunch ENerENvhere

His Greatness Has Been Recognized
and Landed Everywhere.
The human trait Of hero worship has
this disadvantage, That it often exalts its
heroes into the clouds and 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 noblost, and that we alb
solutely owe our national independence
to his consummate generalship. Yet the
homage paid to his greatness in these
days IS OF the head rather than of the
heart
Excessive idcalization has eliminated
the warm human heart from our idea of
him and ] $ left in place of the real
Washngto 4 sort of alabaster image or
only a ste engraving. This is a wrong
both to hin and to ourselves, but it seems
20 have been inevitable in view of the UNI
deniable greatness and nobility of his
character. His chief fault, so to spe~lr
was in being too perfect. He was so
high above the ordinary man that hero
worship was bound to strip away all the
natural human traits and leave nothing
but a sort of demigod exaled on pedes-
tai to be worshiped from afar off. In
recent years this unfortunate process has
had its natural reaction, and the pious
ThapSodies of Weems have been partly re-
placed by biographies which allow the
lonely hero at least few human limita-
tions and peccadilloes. 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
defed Washington.
If any man was ever justly idealzed
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
1t 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 ad-
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
)
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 unseIfsb
and fascinating character. Modest, gen.
erouS, just. forceful, fearless, of absolute
integrity. declining all pay for his price
less patriotic services. what wonder that
So. .,.N1
or that, after his panied and angry re-
fusal, the nation made him not only its
President but its canonized hero forever?
Beyond doubt the greatest of Wash
tngton's many services was rendered as q
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 4 mere assertion 1t was
a comparatively small body of heroes that
presented freedom and nationality to the
thirteen colonies. The feats 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 10 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 we'll as Grant
did. Napoleon never struck more swift
IL or suddenly in his brilliant Italian
campaign than Washington did on that
Christmas night in 1TT6 at Trenton. Nor
was Napoeon's following-up blow more
emphatic than Washington'S 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 bt
bound with Grape for ten days. This was
the respected enemy for whom a great
British fleet hung its flags at half mas
when he passed away. The grief of th'
young nation over his death was heartfelt
and human enough then. Since that tim,
the tributes to his memory have beer
such as no other man of ancient or mod
ern times has commanded. Washington
greatness, unlike that of Lincoln, ha
been recognized aud lauded by all tn
European nations. His name is a house
hold word in every land that has dream
ed of liberty. To every school boy in tn
United States it is the synonym of tn
highest American manhood. If his use a
a lay model has somewhat dehumanize
Washington, it has ennobled the ideal
and lives of the men of the nation. III