The Cordova daily times. [volume] (Cordova, Alaska) 1914-1947, 1918-02-21
THOUGHTS SUGGESTEDFOR
BIRTHDAY Of WASHINGTON

down by unjust laws, our passion for
national life secretly and tragically
burning, If Washington had failed, had
died in vain for the cause which in
fact he brought to lasting triumph
then for poor sentimental humanity
he would shine with a ulster greater
than now is his, writes Joyce Kilmer
in the New York Times His cause
triumphed the dream became a real
ity, and therefore lost the charm of the
dream. Washington, dying on his bed,
in his honored old age, his hopes real
lied, is noble figure. But he lacks
the dramatic appeal of Washington
bidding farewell to his children at the
foot of the gallows.
BY some strange perversity of hui
man nature the cause we consider TO-
mantle and picturesque is always a
Lost Cause. The names most deeply
loved are those of the fallen leaders
whose partisans met with defeat
Robert Bruce and Robert Emmett. viii.
liam Wallace, Sarsfield and Sobieski,
that flair and fatal king" Charles l.,
and his prosecuted and uncrowned
heirs. Children of Union soldiers
though we may be, our hearts beat
more quickly at the thought of Lee
than at the thought of Grant. We rise
when the band plays THE Star-Span-
gled Banner" but we rise and shout
when it plays Dixie"
And it must also be acknowledged
that a tragic death endears a states
man to the generations that follow
him. If you ere a great leader and
want to be sure of posterity's affec-
ton, see that your cause fails. Then
the conquerors will legislate against
the honoring of your memory, and that
will make your fame secure. But If
your cause succeeds, then at least see
that your death is sudden and violent.
Give the world drama, a legend.
Washington triumphed. At York
town he captured Corvallis redcoats
and put an end to tyranny on our
shores. 1t is not forbidden to honor
his memory; the wearing of the red,
white, and blue is attended by no per-
lis. And so we take things for grant
ed; we forget the hideous dangers
through which we passed only some
hundred and two-score years ago; we
take for granted our nationality, our
freedom, and the fearless warrior, the
enlightened statesman who gave them
to us. When we speak of Washington
as the Father of His Country we do so
with laugh, as if the phrase were
empty, rhetoric instead of sublime
truth, Liege means more to us than
Lexington, and remembering Edith
CaVell, we give no thought to Jane
McCrea.
We may we'll thank God that the
war of American independence has not
the glamor of battles fought in vain,
that our freedom is no lost cause, that
Washington's halo is not that of a
martyr whose life and death were I'M
availing. To those who look at the
worlds events in true historical per-
spective, without sentimentality and
with love of justice and freedom in
their breasts, the American Revolution
fills the most encouraging page in the
chronicle of the centuries. But for
most of us it is only in times of stress
like the present that we can come to
an actual sense of our exceptional
privileges to realization of the radi-
ant truth Of the stories we read in our
history book in school. This year the
Declaration of independence takes ON
a clearer significance; we know, as we
did not in bygone years, what it means
to be free and independent states, alb
solved forever from all allegiance to
foreign powers. And so this year
Washington's birthday is no routine
holiday, but a day of solemn yet joyful
commemoration, q day on which we
honor with full hearts him who made
00 ~ AuS4VAlp IE1U -WdIIlOE WHOD0 oNOEO
cut the bonds of our thralldom, the
statesman who babe US, avoiding en-
tangltng alliances, go our free way, an
independent republic, no nations syco-
plant, no nations tool with malice
toward nome" said Washington's
greatest successor, with charity for
all" 1t was summing up of Wash
ington's own political creed No lost
cause, however glorious with the blood
of martyrs, seems today so noble as
the still triumphant cause of American
independence. No modern hero, fight
ing overseas, is today so dear to us
as our founder and preserver. And to
his examples and his counsels we can
not look for guidance and look in vain.