The log cabin Democrat., 1916-03-03


 NtAN ments of our nations fa- kTI CNA ther. The United States
 of America is now in the midst of great criss-one of three. The first was the desperate struggle of the baby republic to maintain life between 1776 and 1915. The second was the terrific fever which rattled the bones of the half-grown nation from 1861 to 1865. The third is different
 The hungry, blood-m wolves of war are snarling all about us. We are charged with the problem of taking means of defense against the time when they may turn from their car casses to attack us. We must insure for ourselves prosperity. For the good of the whole we must assume the task of harmonizing all the multitude of discordant and misunderstanding groups of people that compose our body poltic-men and women of great variety of racial antecedents of political tenets, of religious beliefs of capital and labor of education and ignorance-and weld them into one great patriotic mass. We must keep friendship with cur neighbors to North and South and across the seas.
 So in this time of stress it behooves us to keep our national temper and deal fairly and mean what we say. It IS well worth while to consider the historian Lecky's description of George Washington:
 In the despondency of long contin- ued failure, in the elation of sudden success, at times when his soldiers were deserting by hundreds, and when malignant plots were formed against his reputation, amid the constant quar- rels. rivalries, and jealousies of his subordinates, in the dark hour of na- tional ingratitude, and in the midst of the most universal and intoxicating Hattery. Washington was always the same calm, wise, just and single-mind- ed man, pursuing the course which he believed to be right without fear or favor or fanaticism; equally free from the passions that spring from interest and from the passions that spring from imagination.
 He never acted on the impulse of an absorbing or uncalculating en. thusiasm, and he valued very highly fortune, position, and reputation; but at the command of duty he was ready to risk and sacrifice them all.
 He was, in the highest sense of the words, gentleman and a man of honor, and he carried into public life the standard of private morals.
 Tt was at first the constant dread of large sections of the American peo- pie that if the old government were overthrown they would fall into the hands of military adventurers and un- dergo the yoke of military despotism. It was mainly the transparent integ- rity of the character of Washington that dispelled the fear"
 There has rarely been a time when the people had more need of the les sons of Washington's life than now. We are in the midst of the uncertain ties visited upon us as a people at peace, by conflagration which has en. veloped continent in war. In a year of peace. of sowing and reaping, of the productive activities of market and factory, we suddenly found ourselves face to face with the peril of such a panic as the world had never wit messed. Industry withered as under a blight; trade dried up at the roots; our chief export crop lost for a time twothirds of its value; specie pay ments were suspended in our financial centers. Instead of having heavy trade balances in our favor, we were called upon for gold by the ton to pay for se curities sent back to us by foreign in. vestors. Want and Restitution ap- peared where there had been plenty.
 We have come far since those black days. but dangerous road still stretches before us. Let us remember Washington, the commander in chief of one battle
 That was Yorktown. Washington took the command of the armies of the colonies in July, 1775. He received the surrender of Cornwallis in Octo. Der. 17Sl, more than six years later. These six years were spent in avoid. ing battle. There was one brilliant sortie-the battle of Trenton. But the history of his campaigns is the his. tory of skillful retreats, like that which followed Trenton. rear-guard actions. defensive fights when attacked. disas. trous offensive movements like that on Germantown.
 He had no government behind him only loose confederation of colo nies. which refused to pay their leyies and left him at one time with a dis. couraged remnant of only 5000 sol. diers. He avoided battle with the Brit. ish; he used the arts of the Indian fighter and slipped out of the very jaws Of disaster; he moved from place l..