Norwich bulletin., 1920-03-25
Five Minutes . Day
 With Our Presidents Copyright fs2c-By James, Morgan
FIRST PRO
 GRESslVE

\ @OpyTt9Ht lSzp-6Y James morgan . K-JEFFERsoN-THE FIRST PRO-
 GRESslVE
 1775 Sept, Thomas Jefferson
 resigned from Congress.
 176-9-Mmber of Virginia Assem-
 bly,.
 177e-Sf-Governor.
 1781 -June, Fled from British
 Dec, Member of Virginia
 Assembly. ls
 t782 Sept. 5, Death of his wife. 7.
 17834-Member of Congress.
 1784-e-Minister to France.
 179o-3-Seeretary of State.
 The first and still the foremost, progressive in American statesman ship often has been accused of taking his opinions from the French Revolu- tion and of importing foreign ideas into this country. Any one who will read the Declaration Of Independence and the bills written by the same hand in the same year of T776 will find Thomas Jefferson already asrevolu- tionist years before he saw France, attended the National Assembly, hs- tended to Mirabeau and watched the fall of the Bastille.
 After the Declaration had been adopted Jefferson haStened to Virginia to tear up by the roots that Old De- minion of Kings and make it over into ! free state. Abolishing entail. he pulled out the cornerstone, and abol- ishtng primogeniture, he pulled out the | foundations of an hereditary aristoc- l racy. DiSeStabiishing the Episcopal 1 church, he smashed a religious monop- 1 oly. Remaking all the courts and laws, ! he swept away the barbaric penalties 1 of an old code. Could he have had his way altogether, the transformation would have been, complete with a l schoolhouse at every cross road and with never another child born into slavery.
 While he was wiping out primogeni- i ture, a conservative begged him at least to let the oldest son inherit a 1 double share in an estate. The icono- clast refused, unless the first born ! can eat and produce twice as much as any other Of the children.
 Although he abolished the slave trade, Jefferson wished to stop the 1 coming of slaves from heaven as wei as from Africa, by freeing all black ], children at birth. But thwarted ir ; this purpose, he signed ever after, q tremble for my country when I ref1eci that God is just.
 :. In the armed revolution this revolu. tionist took no hand. Bold as a lio1 : in council, he was a dove in war When the British burst upon Virgini; at the outset of the Yorktown cam paign he was governor. The best h, could do to save the author of tn Declaration Of Tndependenee from tn. Tower of London was to gallop dow one Solpe Of -AOntlcello while the ret y cbllts spurred their horses up tlA other side of the hill.
 While Jefferson still felt after year the sting of censure for the un preparedness of the state the grea and lasting sorrow of his life fell up D on him at the death of his wife, Flo four months he was not out of tn
 sound of her voice, as she lay dyin r in the unique suite at Monticello t where their bed stood in an alcove be " tween two rooms, so that on rising h could step into his room and she int
 hers. They were all the more a de
 voted couple for havig been so ofte n called to mourn together the loss ( q their children. four of whom out e six died in infancy or childhood. TT
 mothers last wish was that the Iii
 tie girls she was leaving should ne1
 CT have a stepnother, and she die le content with the pledge that her hu. 1T bad kept through the remaining fol d ty-four years Of a life tenderIy faitf
 ful to the bride of his youth.
 After weeks Of fsespairig sadnes le Jefferson turned with relief from u ar haunted scene to re-enter congres ,g That body being engaged in casting c
 the pounds, shillings, pence of En-
 land, he introduced the dollar
 A happy chance was missed foreve re the new uniA with its dimes and cent ey when the members rejected his flu ot ther proposal to start the young nj
 tion on the basis of the decmial sy
 tenn in weights and naeascures. ;.l From Congress he was Sent as Mi S ister to the Court of France. You T UT place Dr. Franklin" the Count We er gennes said to him on his arrival
 Paris. sT succeed him. the new e
 voy happily replied; no one can T w place Dr. Frasfklin~ u+ France did not make. Jefferson -, democrat: she onlv confirmed his n sl tive hatred of nlonarchs and nobl 0i Seeing the King and Queen at Vt
 sailles, be called Louis XVI a fool a
 Marie Antoinette something wor re Visiting the peasants in their hoy ev he declared thai out of twenty m Inf lion French people nine million XVI .1s all more miserable than the Wretcht '.u est person in America.
 10 Six weeks and a day after he |
 seen that old France of the. Bo