The Blackfoot optimist. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1907-1918, 1911-02-23
GEORGE WASHINGTON

One virtue which distinguished Geo
rye Washington from other men who
have achieved greatness strikes a
vibrant cord dn the hearts of millions
on his countrymen this week as they
commemorate the 179th anniversary
of his birth. That was his unset
fishness.
In this age of commercialism, with
its lust for money, it's greed for
material power and social prestige,
it is difficult to imagine MAN, so
free of personal vanity and love of
self exatation as to feel am honest
sense of resentment in the suggestio
of his admirers that he turned to
his individual advantage the triumphs
. of the heroic little army he did so
himself King of the American colo
mics. To many the servile, obse-
Quient manner assumed toward the
nobility of other countries nowadays
by many Americans, who bow to the
Fetch of royalty like stories of old
who appeared to be ashamed of their
democratic heritage must seem the
survival of that snobbish spirit in
the land to which the decision of
Washington to keep faith with the
people, brought such keen disap-
pointment
BY his waiver of all SALARY due him
for his eight years service as Com
mander in Chief of the Continental
Army, his assistance hat he be al
lowed to retire to private life ht the
end of his second term as President
and his refusal to accept for himself
or his collateral defendants amy
other honor than the abiding conf
dence and esteem of his apprecia-
tive countrymen he set his fellow
cOuntrymen an example in usefulness
which they might contemplate with
profit to themselves and their coun-
try ON this anniversary.
man was worth more than the flimsy
splendor of "a crown CIR emOlumentS
CT an office for the establishment of
which his country poured forth their
blood and Offered uptheir lives OH
hundred battlefields from Lexing
tom to Yorktown. StWdiously avoid
ing all entangling alliance with for
e,gu nations against which he warned
us, We have left them to sap their vi
tallfy preparing for war while we
have ass!duously cultivated the arts
of peace With our hands outstretch-
ed across the seas we have invited
the healthy and the strong of the old
world to make their home with US and
help us develop and make fruitful the
vast heritage he beQuehed us. Mind
ing our own business and untroubled
by the concerns of our neighbors,
with IA pleasant word and pleasant
smile for all, We have kept stead
lastly to the task to which Washing
ton enjMned us to stick and have
reared the greatest and most pros
porous i..dustrial empire upon which
the SUN has ever shone. We feed
the world with our wheat and our
corn, keep it in profitable employ
ment with our machinery, and
clothe it with our cotton, thanks to
Eli Whitney's Gotten GIN, the only
great labor saving invention of his
coW-trymen he lived to see applied
to use. We surpass Germany i'm the
production of steel, excel France i'm
ured products and through the use of
the Oxford process, Uncle Sans new
est monopoly which accomplishes here
in one or two days what requires
! N. -
thirty weeks to do abroad we have
begun to wrest from England it's cen
turtles old predominance in linen, one
of our most promising Infant indus
tries. In our peaceful commercial
conquest of the earth We follow the
trail of civilization INTO the most re-
mote corners of the universe and
open its doors to the output of our
farms and our factories. Jealous of
our homer abroad and proud of our
achievements at home, as nation
we have kept without blemish the
faith he gave us. Today as ever he
is enshrined in our memories as the
one American who was First in
War, First i'm Peace and First in the