River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1921-02-24
A Tribute To Washington
Ey w. B. Dawson

fections of his country, or to make
the smallest addition to his glory"
The lives of the men who revolu-
tionized this nation into existence re-
veal many strongly European traits.
That Washington should reveal such
traits is not surprising. He was born
in an aristocratic section of the coun-
try which kept many of the customs
Of high-bo British subjects long aft
er some other sections had surrender
ed them. The economic and social
life of that section was built round
the plantation system. From the
great manor house and the broad
acres that lay back of it to the shops
and huts of the servants and slaves,
from the wealthy planter class to the
class of poorer whites who held the
less productive land on the ridges and
in the frontier bnck-country the eco
nonlic system of the southern region
of new America was aristocratic in all
its features. With wealth concentrat-
ed in the hands of the few, social and
educational and religious opportunit-
les were concentrated in the hands of
the few. Tidewater Virginia held few
chances for the poor man. He had
little voice in the conduct of political
affairs until he moved into the foot
hill region above the fall-line. Into
this aristocratic society the boy Wash !
ington was born, and like other boys
of the planter class ne was taught to
ride well, shoot well, and to tell the
truth. He grew to be tall, vigorous,
dignified and sedate, popular with the
young men of his class, studious, mod
est and manly. His fine head, we'll
poised on broad shoulders, his we'll
proportioned body, his agility and pre-
cision, his aptitude for leadership in
military and political affairs marked
him as young man of unusual abil-
ity. While the influences that were
thrown about him in his earlier years
were essentially aristocratic yet be-
fore he was of age he had undergone
influences that were more truly Amer
lean. Those influences were the in
fluences of the frontier. Here it was
that rea, American characters were
shaped. 1t was Washington's touch
with that life which rendered him
more capable of understanding the
new America and leading it.
Throughout the Revolutionary War,
when his motley crowd of soldiers,
poorly equipped and more poorly paid
as they were, were half-hearted and
small minded and hesitating in their
loyalty to the new cause Washington
came to realize the dependability of
his frontier "neighbors," as he called
them. He knew the stuff of which
westerners were made and he never
doubted that stuff. Later when he
became President he was alive to the
Importance and the needs of the west
frn communities. Students of that
time well remember how the new
President met the crisis when these
communities were drifting away from
the new union. 1t was he who taught
them their obligations to the nation.
Il was he who taught them to pay
taxes to the nation. 1t was he who
taught them to respect federal au-
thority. But it was also he who
proposed systems of communication
and national services with which to
bind the western communities more
firmly to the well-settled regions east
of the mountains.
The nation for whom Washington,
in April, 1889, assumed the office of
President prophesied but little of the
great future which awaited it. While
geographically it extended to the
Mississippi River the control of the
navigation of that river was divided
with Spain, and the control of its
mouth rested wholly in the jealous
hands of the latter country. The
population of the entire country was
less than four million-nearly two
million less than the population of its
largest city today. All but 125,O00
of these lived east of the Appalach-
ian Mountains. Less than four per
cent. of the people lived in. cities and
of the four largest cities in that day
none had a population greater than
10000.
If the country was young its gov
eminent was even younger. Polit-
ically the people were free from Eng
land but among them We're thousands
of people who had remained loyal to
England, and who had bitterly op-
posed the American Revolution.
Furthermore, after the dangers of
war were over and the united oppo-
sition to English authority had sue