The leader-enterprise. [volume] (Fitzgerald, Ga.) 1912-1915, 1913-06-27
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Twas poor sport, after all, without
the right sportsmen. 1t must needs
Igive way before a statesman's cares.
A New Sense of Responsibility.
Upon his first Homecoming, Wash
Iington had found it hard to break
himself of his habit of waking very
early in the morning with sense OF
care concerning the affairs of the day,
as If he were still in camp and in the
midst of public duties.
Now a new sense of responsibility
possessed him, and more and more
gained ascendency over him. He be-
gan to feel deep anxiety lest weak
government should, make independ-
ence little better than reproach, and
the country should fall into a hope
less impotency.
At first he had been very sanguine.
Notwithstanding the jealous and con-
tracted temper which seems to pre-
vail in some of the states" he wrote
90 Jonathan Trumbull in January,
1874, yet l cannot but hope and be-
iieve that the good sense of the people
will ultimately get the better of their
Dretudices, and that order and sound
policy, though they do not come so
soon as one could wish, will be pro-
duced from the present unsettled and
deranged state of public affairs.
Everything, my dear Trumbull, will
come right at last, as we have often
prophesied My only fear is that we
shall lose a little reputation first"
But the more Washington observed
the temper of the time, the more I'M
easy he grew
Like young heir" he cried, come
a little prematurely to large inheri-
lance, we shall wanton and run riot
until we have brought our reputation
to the brink of ruin, and then, like
him, shall have to labor with the cur
rent of opinion, when compelled, per-
haps, to do what prudence and COM
mon policy pointed out as plain as any
problem in Euclid, in the first instance
.. think we have opposed Great
Britain, and have arrived at the pres
ent state OF peace and independency,
to very little purpose. If we cannot
conquer our own prejudices."
For the present he saw little that
could be done beyond holding up the
hands of the congress. and increasing,
as it might prove possible to do 80.
the meager powers of the confedera-
ton.
Washlngton's Political Greed.
"My political creed" he said. els to
be wise in the choice of delegates, sup.
port them like gentlemen while they
are our representatives. give them
competent powers for all federal pur-
poses, support them In the due exer-
else thereof, and, lastly, to compel
them to close attendance in congress
during their delegation"
But his thoughts took wider scope
as the months passed; and nothing
quickened them more than his western
trip.
He saw how much Of the future
travelled with those slow wagon trains
OF immigrants into the west; realized
the rivers that ran to the old ports
at the sea, and going down into the
valleys whose outlet was the great
highway of the Mississippi and the
ports of the gulf: how the great ridge
of the Alleghanies lay piled between
them and the older seats of settle
ment, with only here and there a gar
to let road through. only here and
there two rivers lying close enough
at their sources to link the east with
the west; and the likelihood of sepa
ration between the two populations
seemed to him as obvious as the tilt Of
the mountains upon either slope.
Words of Wisdom.
There is nothing which binds one
country or one state to another but
interest" he said. without this ce
ment the western inhabitants, who
more than probably will be composed
In a great degree of foreigners, car
have no prediction for us. and q
commercial connection is the only tic
we can have upon them"
"The western settlers" he declared
while still fresh from the Ohio, "stanG
as 1t were upon pivot. The touch
of a feather would turn them any way
down the Mississippi to join theiI
Interests with those of the Spaniard
or back to the mountain roads and the
headwaters of the eastern streams, tt
make for themselves a new allegiance
in the east.
He was glad to see the Spaniard SC
impolitic as to close the Mississippi
against the commerce offered him, and
hoped that things might stand so until
there should have been "a little time
allowed to open and make easy the
ways between the Atlantic states and
the western territory"
To Open the Potomac.
The opening of the upper reaches
of the Potomac to navigation had long
been a favorite object with Washing
ton; now it seemed nothing less than
a necessity.
It had been part of the original
scheme of the old Ohio company to
use this means of winning way for
commerce through the mountains.
Steps had been taken more than TWEEN
ty years ago to act In the matter
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