The Daily Alaska empire., 1928-04-16
JEFFERSON.

Among Americas great none was greater In service to his country than Thomas Jefferson whose 1S5th birthday celebrated last week. None was greater in mental activity, in variety of interest in single-minded pursuit of truth, in capacity and disposition to work None was so clearly or so long the undisputed leader of his country in thought and action None left behind more that survived for generations that followed. He was the interpreter of his generation Of Am ericans and the preceptor of Jackson, Clay, Lin- con, Tilden, Cleveland and the other outstanding statesmen who came after him. His teachings, more than those of any other Amercan have been his eountry's guide.
 Some of these claims have been disputed but usually the disputants were brief writers rather than historians. Jefferson early earned the dis pleasure of sectionalists and of those who dis liked his freedom from dogma and his attachment 10 democracy, mi perhaps unfortunate that his enemies were located mostly in that section of the country where more people wrote and presses were kept busy.
 But too much history made about tht head of Jefferson to permit the thinning of the light he gave forth People know that he wrote the Declaration of Independence and that he raised the money that paid the necessary ex- penses of the expeditions of Gen. George Rogers Clark the George Washington of the West" and furnished that great warrior the inspiration thai saved for the new republic the country between thee Alleghanies and the Mississippi. and the Ohio and the Great Lakes If il had not been for lief ferson Ohio, Indiana, Illinois Michigan and Wis eonsin would have been part of Canada instead of the United States. People know that he bought Louisiana, from which all or parts of four teen States were carved They know that he in spired the purchase of Florida They know thai he caused Virginia to give to the Federal Gov ernment the Northwest Territory instead of keep ing it for herself He said that if this country is to be a union of States it would not be wei for one State, though that State might be his devoted Virginia to dominate the whole If il had not been for what Jefferson did the United States would not have had for Texas Cali fornia or other Mexican concessions, for Washing ton Oregon and the country through westerr explorations, for Alaska, the Philippines. Hawai- any of the other Pacific West Indian pos sessions or for the Panama Canal These ar, material accomplishments of Jefferson in the ac complaining of which he got little assistance iron New England and none at all from the grea 5 Hamilton.
 This is only brief summary of some of lief fersons main material achievements. It takes n, account of his work in behalf of public schools the State university system the abolition of en tail the establishment of freedom of religion belief his experiments and work in behal of agriculture, which included the invention o the modern plow.
 The circumstance that after serving eigh years as President he left office with even nor popularity than he entered it; that he named hi successor in office and his successors successor both of whom were his friends and under-studies that for a quarter of century his judgment were the judgments of his country tell thought ful people more than verbal written argumen of his capacities and singleness of purpose statesman
 +t.. D,;4 says:
 Jefferson was one of the greatest
 political managers his country has
 known He had quick eye for char
 acter was genuinely amiabe, uneon-
 tentious, tactful, masterful His
 importance q maker of modern Am
 erica can scarcely be overstated for the
 ideas he advocated have become the very
 foundations of American republieanism.
 His administration ended the possibility,
 probability or ceTtanty--measure it
 one will-of the development of Feder-
 alism . the direction of class govern
 ment; and the party he formed, inspired
 by the creed he gave it, fixed the demo-
 cratic future of the Nation. By his
 labors he had vindicated his faith
 in the experiment of self-goYernment
 
 Beneath quiet surface he was fairly
 aglow with intense convictions and a
 very emotional temperament Yet he
 to have acted habitually in great
 and little things on. system His mind
 no less trenchant than Hamltons was
 the most impossible, the most recep-
 tive, mind of his time in America The
 range of his interest was remarkable
 ~ He singularly sweet tempered
 and shrank from the impassioned polit-
 ical bitterness that ragged about him;
 bore with relative equanimity flood
 of and malignant abuse of his mo-
 lives, morals, religion, personal honesty