The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1910-02-17
HOME CIRCLE COLUMN.
GEORGE WASHINGTON

February Washington's birthday-is
celebrated.
How shall any man add aught to the
praise or eulogy of George Washing
ten? History and biography, eloquence
and poetry have exhausted their COM
bined riches upon the successful leader
of the American revolution and the
founder of the American republic-our
first great national hero.
Every great crisis in the history of
the world has found its man to control
and guide it. Call this Providence or
accident, the American revolution was
no exception to it. Before the first
murmurS of discomfort were heard in
that struggle the man was being pre-
pared for the crisis. On the banks of
the Potomac and the Rappahannock,
thirty years before Lexington and
Bunker Hill, truthful and manly boy
was growing up, ripening into stall
wart young manhood. With only the
common school education of that early
day, the young man was soon being
educated in the broader school of ma
ture and experience, in the great for
est, under the open heavens, with his
surveyors chain and his sword, in In
dian wars, defending the frontier set
Elements from savage incursions.
..ti11 oIasa 20 manly yntln a.
Virginian is soon the leading spirit
and military commander of all that
Potomac region, and his skill, endur-
ance and courage in those campaigns
swell the measure of his fame. Then
with his peace, the young commander
LAYS aside the sword, marries and set
ties upon his inherited country seat at
Mt. Vernon and like his ancestors is
now rich landed proprietor, a Nir-
ginian farmer and planter and country
gentleman. So he might have re-
manned to the end, had not the voice
of patriotism called him to take part
with his neighbors and the oppressed
people of the colonies against the ty-
ranny of the mother country. Wash
ington sat with Jefferson and Richard
Henry Lee and Mason and Pendleton,
colleagues to that first continental
congress at Philadelphia.
The guns of Lexington crack, and
their far echoes reach the patriot con-
gress at Philadelphia. They walked
the colonies to action. 1t had been de-
bate and petition and circumstances
before-it was war, war for liberty
now. Twenty thousand patriot colon
lists had closed in upon the rereating
British in Boston. Who should this
leader be? The hour found the man,
and out there stepped from the Nir-
ginia delegation and advanced to the
bar of the house to accept his great
trust, this modest frontier colonel, leg
islator and planter-tall, imposing and
commanding in appearance, his fine
form made athletic and sinewy 10y long,
manly exercise; his Judgment ripened
by experience in war and peace-the
very ideal picture of the hero which
the crisis demanded, George Washing
ton, the MAN.
Aside from all questions of success
or failure, as we look at the man. what
was it that made Washington great?
1t is clear that it was not the possess
sion of great or brilliant intellectual
faculties. Not in congress or convcn-
ton, nor aS speaker, writer, or even
soldier, were these displayed. Other
men have cXcclled him in all these
ways, but in word, it was manhood;
it was characters it was moral great
ness 1t was that nice adjustment OF
the moral and intellectual faculties,
that perfect blending of parts. that
lofty sense of duty in the performance
of every trust, that SpotlesS truth, that
stainless honor, that incorruptiblc in
tegrity, that faultlcsS courage and UNI
shaken endurancc-all these and more
that made up that consummate piece
of manhood which lowered out in that
eighteenth century of time and which
is now evermorc the priceless possess
sion and glory of history. This is the
supreme greatness of Washington.