UC-NRLF Iflt, GIFT OF ^MQg- GIFT S| FEE ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE UNVEILING OF THE WASHINGTON STATUE AT NEWARK NOVEMBER 2, 1912 BY FRANCIS J. SWAYZE PRIVATELY PRINTED 1913 3fl#53S^T52hS2fttfS:S^ ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE UNVEILING OF THE WASHINGTON STATUE AT NEWARK NOVEMBER 2, 1912 BY FRANCIS J. SWAYZE PRIVATELY PRINTED 1913 ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE UNVEILING OF THE WASHINGTON STATUE AT NEWARK NOVEMBER 2, 1912 BY FRANCIS J. SWAYZE Ladies and Gentlemen: WE meet under the shadow of a national grief. The sad event of the week again reminds us if reminder were necessary of the vanity of human ambition. We grieve for the death of a man in high place, but we console ourselves with the thought of the greatness and the perpetuity of the government he served. Popular government can not die. Fortunately for us in this week of excitement and turmoil, the death of the Vice-president causes no po litical crisis. The electoral machinery averts what might otherwise be a serious difficulty, 257192 and we can rejoice in the wisdom of the foun ders of the government. We are here this afternoon to unveil a monument to one of those founders, the gift of a public-spirited citizen of this city. Justice requires that we should remember him with gratitude. Public gifts of that kind are not common with us, and we are thankful that a citizen of Newark has thus recognized his obligations to the city in which his fortune was made. He has his re ward. Churchyard marbles and mausoleums with which men strive in vain to perpetuate their memories are soon forgotten and passed heedlessly by. Mr. Van Horn s name will be remembered in Newark as long as granite and bronze shall last. His gift not only adorns the city with a work of art, but will arouse and stimulate the patriotism of the endless genera tions of the future. Many a Newark boy will be stirred by ambition to serve the State by the contemplation of the fame and honor it brings. Many a Newark boy as he passes this statue will be taught as books can not teach him that the "path of duty is the way to glory." Our power goes with our life; our wealth is scat tered by our heirs, but the memory of meri torious public service endures. Yonder on Military Park we have placed the statue of Kearny the soldier, and Frelinghuysen the statesman. Close at hand are the memorials of Seth Boyden the artisan, and Monsignor Doane the upright citizen. Facing the Court House is Lincoln, an everlasting personification of jus tice to the oppressed. To-day we add the statue of a greater soldier, a greater statesman, a greater public benefactor. Washington had the supreme good fortune to be one of the foun ders of the government and Lord Bacon rightly ranks founders of the State first in the degrees of sovereign honor. If a nation s character is to be judged by the heroes it chooses as its best representatives, we may rest secure; for by common consent not of Americans only, but of every competent judge, Washington stands in the very first rank. At his death Napoleon or dered that for ten days black crape be sus pended from all the standards and banners of the French Republic. The Tory historian a few years later in a panegyric on George III counts it one of the marks of the greatness of the time that it was distinguished by the "disinterested virtue, prophetic wisdom, and imperturbable fortitude of Washington." Within a few years a distinguished Englishman has ranked Wash ington with, but superior to, Cromwell and William the Silent. The work of Cromwell barely survived his lifetime, and the work of William was limited to a nation of great achievements, but small numbers, living upon a limited territory. The work of Washington has lasted until our own day and bids fair to last for centuries among a people already one of the great nations of the world and destined for still greater achievements. The compari son with Cromwell and William the Silent you perhaps anticipated. You could hardly antici pate, I certainly did not, that the same most competent judge ranks Washington s diplo macy and policy above that of Frederick the Great, Richelieu, Peter the Great, Louis XI of France, Elizabeth of England, William of Orange, and Cromwell, and that because he "stood four square, upright, without re proach." A reputation that can win the admi ration of contemporaries and endure for a cen tury is praise enough. The records have all come to light and he has not been shamed. There is no need of labored eulogy. Ignoble minds may pick flaws in his character. A valet judges according to the standard of a valet. There must be a devil s advocate at the canon ization of every saint; but no one envies the advocate his client. Washington was fortunate in the time and the place of his birth. He was born in the eigh teenth century, the century which laid the foundations for the liberty of thought and ac- CO tion, the political and religious liberty, that made possible the tremendous advance of the nineteenth century, the century which saw the beginning of free government as we now know it and the disappearance of the vestiges of feudalism. Men were necessarily led to study the fundamental principles of govern ment as they had never been studied before and have never been studied since. He was born in Virginia in 1732, a subject of George II of England. The old doctrine of the divine right of rulers to govern had already been re jected in the English Revolution of 1688, and the new doctrine of the obligation of rulers to rule in justice had already been formulated. A dynasty of German kings on the English throne made it necessary for the king to allow his ministers to govern, and the modern sys tem of ministerial responsibility had begun. It was only when England had a king born and educated in the country and glorying in the name of Briton that a tendency to despotism began. At the time of Washington s birth men of light and leading upon the continent looked to England for their lessons of free govern ment. Voltaire and Rousseau sat at the feet of Locke, Montesquieu published an elaborate panegyric on the English constitution. These names are not without significance for us, for Jefferson owned and read Locke s Treatise on Government and from it derived the principles of the Declaration of Independence; Hamilton and Madison were familiar with Montesquieu and modeled our Federal constitution upon his theories. Washington was not a man of books, but he was born and lived in an atmosphere in which discussions of the fundamental princi ples of government prevailed, and like all great men was a man of his time. His life naturally falls into four periods: the years of training and preparation from his birth to the close of the French and Indian War; his military career as commander of the troops during the Revo lutionary War; his services during the confed eration from the treaty of peace to the organi zation of the Federal government; and his Presidency. Up to the close of the French and Indian War, Virginia and the other colonies were on the frontier. We can hardly realize that at that time, more than one hundred years after the early settlements, the English colonists had pushed no farther westward. Those of you who are familiar with the story of our own State will recall that as late as 1760 the line of the upper Delaware from Easton to Port Jervis was protected against attacks of hostile In dians by a chain of blockhouses, where the settlers could rally for military protection. It was a hard school and everything was on a small scale, but experience and observation in border warfare gave Washington the military experience which subsequently enabled him to cope with the trained officers of Great Britain and the German mercenaries. When peace came he returned to his land in Virginia and there spent the intervening twelve years until the shot of the embattled farmers at Lexington and Concord summoned him again to war. No one can study his career for the next eight years without admiring the skill of the general who besieged the British troops in Boston, forced their surrender of the city and secured New England for the cause of Independence. Still more admirable is the patience and en durance with which amidst doubt and discour agement, desertion and disaster, he managed to keep his little army together after unsuc cessful battles on Long Island and about New York, to lead them safely in retreat across New Jersey, to hold them in readiness to strike the great blows at Trenton, and Princeton, and Monmouth, and, as the skies brightened, to shut Clinton up in New York, keep open the line of the Hudson, force the serious fighting to the South, until at last, with a celerity that the historian compares to that of Napoleon in the campaign of Ulm and Austerlitz, he hurled his army from the banks of the Hudson to the banks of the James and won the crowning vic tory at Yorktown. I have heard a story which I thought too good to be true, but now know to be reliable. Some years ago an American in Berlin at a public reception fell in with a German officer and was astonished at his familiarity with these campaigns, and delighted at his admira tion for Washington s strategy. When they parted the German handed him his card and the American read with amazement Field- marshal von Moltke. It is enough. Praise of Washington s military strategy by the great est military strategist since Napoleon leaves nothing to be said. It is easy for critics to refer to Washington s frequent defeats, few victories and forced retreats, but we must judge a man not merely by what he does, but by the relation which what he accom plishes bears to the means at his command; judged by this standard no one stands higher. With the most slender resources of men and money, he accomplished his task. That task was not ended when peace was declared. We had a bankrupt treasury, a discordant confed eration of States, mutual jealousy, rebellion and strife, and relief seemed almost hopeless. To the more perfect union that succeeded, Washington contributed more than any other man. He had not the learning of Madison nor the unique political genius of Hamilton, nor the familiarity with the world that made Franklin so successful a diplomat, but he had that extraordinary good sense, that imperturb able fortitude, to use Alison s words, which en abled him to keep his temper in the most trying circumstances and to decide with what seems unerring sagacity between conflicting opin ions; above all, he had the high character tested by years of severe trial, which gave him the confidence of all. He was chosen President of the Federal Convention in 1787, and when the new government was formed in 1789 there was unanimous consent that he should be its head. It was then an office which imposed serious burdens. Whether it brought honor or not de pended upon whether the new and untried gov ernment proved a success. It is one thing to occupy a position such as the Presidency has now become, supported by the allegiance of millions of men habituated to obedience to the National Government and respect for its head. It was very different to be the man to set the new government on its feet, to disarm criti cism, to win respect abroad and support at home. This was Washington s task, and this he accomplished. His services during the eight years of his Presidency were, if possible, more valuable than the services rendered during the war and under the confederation. He needed the services of the best men, and the Federal service then was not attractive. It meant hard work, poor pay, uncertain results. Men were accustomed to the separate governments of the States, and that service was more attractive than the service of the National Government. It was at first difficult to get a quorum in Con gress; the Supreme Court was without busi ness, and Jay resigned the Chief Justiceship to become Governor of New York. The very theory on which the new government was founded was as yet unsettled. Washington se cured great men for his cabinet, but the cabinet was divided by the party differences of Jeffer son the Secretary of State, and Hamilton the Secretary of the Treasury. Dangers threat ened from abroad, from France and from Eng land. Between the conflicting opinions Wash ington had to steer his way. He listened to all; he planted himself upon the Constitution he had helped to frame; he preserved the inde pendence of the United States as he had helped to achieve the independence of the several States, and now after his work has been tested by more than one hundred years it is safe to [103 challenge the world to point out a single erro neous decision in a matter of importance. He found only the raw materials of a nation; he left it living, growing, enduring. He was a con temporary of one of the three greatest military geniuses who ever lived. But Napoleon left his country with a territory shrunken to much smaller boundaries than he found it, with all the conquests of the republic lost, smaller even than Louis XVI had left to the republic, and he left it with its morale so shaken that it is doubt ful if it has ever recovered from the injury he inflicted upon it; he saw the Prussian whom he had humiliated entering Paris in triumph, and England, which he had hated, undisputed mis tress of the seas. Of all his work nothing re mains but the leadership of his adversaries on land and sea, and that with which he had least to do the Code; even the Concordat is now a matter of history. Washington was no mili tary genius; he suffered frequent defeats; but he found thirteen separate and clashing colo nies; he achieved their independence from Great Britain; he did his part to weld them into a single nation, and to-day one hundred mil lion Americans remember him with gratitude, and recall him with pride. ^ The nation he founded has become one of the great nations of the world not merely be- [11] cause of his actual achievement, but because of the heritage of his pure and lofty character, which has induced them to follow in the main, although with occasional shortcomings and backslidings, his wise advice to cherish a cor dial, habitual, and immovable attachment to the National Union, to cherish the public credit, and in foreign affairs to observe good faith and justice toward all nations and cultivate peace and harmony with all. If the government he founded is to continue to prosper, these prin ciples must continue to be observed and those charged with the administration of affairs must, as he urged, confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoid ing in the exercise of powers of one department encroachment upon the others. I have just re-read the Farewell Address and I rose from its reading with more admiration than ever be fore. It is as timely in 1912 as it was in 1796. I doubt if another document can be found con taining sounder opinions, of more enduring value, expressed in more sensible terms. We admire and praise the great general and the great President for what he accomplished and for what he taught, but as I study his career I admire him more for his great character, his unerring sagacity, his prophetic insight, his fortitude, his justice toward all, his self- restraint and self-control; I admire him still more for the courage with which he espoused unpopular causes when it was right so to do. I admire him for his advocacy in the face of the opposition of his own Virginia of the full payment of honest debts incurred during the war, thus establishing our credit as an honest nation and setting an example which we fol lowed eighty years later when we paid our debts in gold, although it sometimes cost us nearly three dollars for one. I admire him for the firmness with which he stood for the neu trality of the United States when men clamored for an alliance with France, thus enabling later generations to steer clear of the complications of European politics. I admire him for his support of the Jay treaty with Great Britain and the fulfilment of our obligations there under when he knew the majority of his fellow- citizens were against him. We are all of his opinion now. It is easy for a public man to keep his ear to the ground and to drift with the popular current; it requires high courage to endure in silence popular obloquy for a cause you know is right. Our public men too often regulate their conduct by what they think the people want, which at best is only what the majority want, and more often only what is wanted by a plurality, another name for a mi- nority. That can never be the true test. The true test is that adopted by Washington, what is right and best for the common good of all; and the ultimate safety of a democracy de pends upon the adherence of its leaders to this standard that he set. It is as true to-day as it was one hundred and thirty years ago, that the chosen heroes are the men who dare to stand alone and calmly await the verdict of his tory without condescending to the evanescent triumph of the moment. RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (415)642-6233 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date DUE AS STAMPED BELOW mi MAKERS .SYRACUSE,- H.Y. PAT. JAN.*I, I90S YC 50869 257192 *J J53