The National tribune., 1907-02-28
ROBERT EDWARD LEE
As Seen Through the Spectacles Of
Charles Francis Adams in His Grafton
at the Lee Centennial Celebration,
Lexington, Va, Jan. l9.
ny GEORGE EDWIN JEPSON, Post
81, G. A. r., Watertown, Mass.

Patriotism" said the splenetic Dr.
johnson, str1ding his hobby horse dur
ing a symposium at the club. patriot
Ism Is the last refuge of scoundrel"
Whether Oliver Goldsmith, David
Garrick, Joshua Reynolds, Topham
Beauclerc and other coadjutors of the
great seven-tailed Bashaw of English
literature laid finger on nose and wink
ed askantly at each other at the obliqus
dictum of their chief, is not known
altho they probably did so-simply be-
cause Recorder Boswell was too intent
on catching the pearls of wisdom a:
they flowed from his hero's lips to no.
tice any such little side play that might
be going on.
To belittle the quality and name OF
patriotism has been the fashion OF
cynics in many ages. To wrest it from
its one and only meaning has been the
practise of demagogs from time imme-
mortal But the quality of patriotism
like that of mercy, is not strained. II
Is incapable per Sc of a divided or two
fold Interpretation WebSter'S Diction-
ary defines the term as "the passion
which aims to serve ones country, eth
er in defending it from invasion OF
protecting Its rights and maintaining
its laws and institutions in vigor and
purity. Patriotism is the characteristic
of a good citizen, the noblest passion
that animates q man in the character
Of a citizen"
And the same authority defines a
patriot as "a person who loves his
country and zealously supports and de-
tends 1t and its interests" And that
other Webster, the Great Expounder,
has, II not in direct terms, at least sub
stantially in countless instances, held
up with vivid eloquence and matchless
periods the sentiment Of love of coun-
try as second only to the Christian 8
love of God.
These definitions have been deduced
from the experience of all ages, and
have suff1ced hitherto to fix the mean
ing of the term patriotism to the gen.
eral approval of mankind. Within re-
cent years there seems to have arisen
a convention on the part of certain
college dignitaries, historians and po-
litical orators, either out Of an amiable
spirit of complacency, for commercial
considerations, the desire to strengthen
wobbly district fences or in order to
win a reputation for singularity, to give
q new nomenclature to divers old-raSn-
toned expressions obnoxious to certain
sensitive souls, and so enwrap them. as
It were, in a mantle of benevolent
euphonistic sentiment that, like char
My, Is made to cover a multitude of
Gins The words rebel, traitor, treason,
even Anarchist and Nihilist, have pretty
well dropt out of the vocabularies of
these kind-hearted people, and designa-
tons substituted so mellifiuous to the
ear that they are warranted not to rasp
the acutest sensibilities For instance,
4 is not good form in polite circles,
even in Boston, that erstwhile cradle of
the Revolution and where at least two
Adamses, John and Samuel, were wont
in town meeting and elsewhere to ex-
pound sound principles of equal rights
and draw broad distinctions between
the terms patriots and traitors-it is
not good form there nowadays to men
ton the word Tories. Probably the
ungentle name would be tabooed even
at a Chapter meeting of the Massachu
setts Sons of the Revolution or of the
Massachusetts, Historical Society, which
latter might or might not sustain its
President, Charles Francis Adams, in
his modern definition of a patriot as ap
piled to the late Robert E. Lee. Those
unhappy Tories, as we formerly called
them, are now merely loyalists. and 1t
has even been discovered that they