Omaha daily bee., 1919-04-02
Historic Sayings
New York Evening Post.

| "When General Pershing stood at the tomb
off Lafayette and said, Lafayette, we are
hereP so begins sentence from President
Wilson's speech before the French chamber.
| Thus is given the decisive authority of a presi-
dent who is also an historian to what may posi-
| bly, be a complete historical untruth. The earl
lest reports of the famous phrase did not put it
in Pershngs mouth. In speech by Georges
Leagues, published in France early last year, 1t is
stated that Colonel Stanton, standing at the tomb
at Picpus, uttered the words Lafayette, nous
sommes la!" For years John Taylor was credited
by many with writing the Virginia resolutions,
passed in 1898; when circumstances led him to
declare Madson's authorship, he remarked
genially that one motive for silence had been
the pleasantness of having an able document
attributed to him. We cannot expect Pershing
to put away the phrase. History will not do it.
AS given to our commander in France it is so
dramatic and fitting that it belongs to him by
right if not origin.
IT we begin scrutinizing great historical
phrases too closely, the consequences may in
deed be dreful. millions for defence, but not
one cent for tribute" This ringing phrase we
like to think of as occurring spontaneously to
c. C. Pinckney when he heard the shameful de-
mands of the French directory. Cold accuracy
tells us that its first occurrence was on the pro-
gram Of the Marshall banquet in Philadelphia,
June 10, 1893. What Pickney said was, NO not
a Slxpence! But the sense being the same,
why not give Pinckney rather than a program
credit for the greater utterance? Jefferson, as
any retailer of historical phrases will tell us,
said of Federalist oficehoders that Few die
and none resign" What he actually said was:
If due participation of Office is a matter of
right, how are vacancies to be obtained? Those
by death are few, by resignation, none" 1t is
obviously better to believe popular history than
the exact words of "Jefferson's Writings" Did
the commander at Bunker Hill say, Don't fire
till you see the whites of their eyes?" Recent
authorities show evidence that the order had no
such terseness, but the temptation to polish the
phrase was too much. Taylor says, "Give 'em a
little grape, Captain Bragg but Clos hand
soon clipped away the first two superhuous
words. Sometimes exact accuracy throws cold
water on tervid utterances simply by attacking
the justice of the ordinary deductions from them.
Clay did say he would rather be right than
president, but Schurz hints that what he meant
by right was dubious, and that his eye never
left the presidency And sometimes accuracy
simply flies into rage over fond beliefs.
Did Wellington shout, up, Guards, and at
them" and did his French opponents actually
cry out, THE Old Guard dies but never sur
renders!"?
The actor in great scene is happy who is
able to make fitting verbal use of great oppor-
tunity, and do so under circumstances which
leave no doubt of the authenticity of his utter
ance. The words, First in war, first in peace,
first in the hearts of his countrymen,' had
dozen claimants; but "Light-Horse Harry" Lee
could bring forward witnesses to rout all COM
ers. The brief messages of Nelson at Trafalgar,
Or Grant at Donelson, are fortunately as in
disputable as they are memorable. But almost
as happy is the figure who at some striking mo-
ment is lost in legendary cloud which permits
the accreton to his fame of an utterance not
actually his; and to dissipate the cloud is to do
injustice to all who find profit in such moments
1t is decidedly doubtful if Lincoln, witnessing
at New Orleans his first slave auction, said that
if he ever had chance to hit the evil he would
hit it hard; but it is lesson to many in pur-
posefuness to think so. Lawrence really said,
Don't give up the ship" but if he had not it
would have been fitting for some Plutarch or
Jared Sparks to attribute it to him.
AS nature abhors vacuum, history abhors
a great moment poorly utilized. She cannot
always fill it, and we may imagine her turning
her face from kaiser who makes false, rhodo-
montade speeches on fields consecrated by the
blood of hundreds of thousands. But mans
age-old poetzing, myth making sense has a
feeling of fitness that often supplies the lack
left by actors the stage of events. The masses
of even a we'll educated nation probably re-
member anecdotal history alone. They cannot
spend long periods in close study of the past,
and if by narrow pedantry to rob
them of the inspiration they find in history's
spectacular sayings, we should rob them of
something which does not enrich the taker and
leaves them-in that direction-poor indeed.