Four American Leaders | Page 9

won independence--it
is no wonder that political passions burnt fiercely. On this question
Washington stood between the opposing parties, and often commended
himself to neither. In spite of the tremendous partisan heat of the times,
Washington, through both his administrations, made appointments to
public office from both parties indifferently. He appointed some
well-known Tories and many Democrats. He insisted only on fitness as
regards character, ability, and experience, and preferred persons, of
whatever party, who had already proved their capacity in business or
the professions, or in legislative or administrative offices. It is a
striking fact that Washington is the only one of the Presidents of the
United States who has, as a rule, acted on these principles. His example
was not followed by his early successors, or by any of the more recent
occupants of the Presidency. His successors, elected by a party, have
not seen their way to make appointments without regard to party
connections. The Civil Service Reform agitation of the last twenty-five
years is nothing but an effort to return, in regard to the humbler
national offices, to the practice of President Washington.
In spite of these resemblances between Washington's time and our own,
the profound contrasts make the resemblances seem unimportant. In the
first years of the Government of the United States there was widespread
and genuine apprehension lest the executive should develop too much
power, and lest the centralization of the Government should become
overwhelming. Nothing can be farther from our political thoughts
to-day than this dread of the power of the national executive. On the
contrary, we are constantly finding that it is feeble where we wish it

were strong, impotent where we wish it omnipotent. The Senate of the
United States has deprived the President of much of the power intended
for his office, and has then found it, on the whole, convenient and
desirable to allow itself to be held up by any one of its members who
possesses the bodily strength and the assurance to talk or read aloud by
the week. Other forces have developed within the Republic quite
outside of the Government, which seem to us to override and almost
defy the closely limited governmental forces. Quite lately we have seen
two of these new forces--one a combination of capitalists, the other a
combination of laborers--put the President of the United States into a
position of a mediator between two parties whom he could not control,
and with whom he must intercede. This is part of the tremendous
nineteenth century democratic revolution, and of the newly acquired
facilities for combination and association for the promotion of common
interests. We no longer dread abuse of the power of state or church; we
do dread abuse of the powers of compact bodies of men, highly
organized and consenting to be despotically ruled, for the advancement
of their selfish interests.
Washington was a stern disciplinarian in war; if he could not shoot
deserters he wanted them "stoutly whipped." He thought that army
officers should be of a different class from their men, and should never
put themselves on an equality with their men; he went himself to
suppress the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, and always believed that firm
government was essential to freedom. He never could have imagined
for a moment the toleration of disorder and violence which is now
exhibited everywhere in our country when a serious strike occurs. He
was the chief actor through the long struggles, military and civil, which
attended the birth of this nation, and took the gravest responsibilities
which could then fall to the lot of soldiers or statesmen; but he never
encountered, and indeed never imagined, the anxieties and dangers
which now beset the Republic of which he was the founder. We face
new difficulties. Shall we face them with Washington's courage,
wisdom, and success?
Finally, I ask your attention to the striking contrast between the wealth
of Washington and the poverty of Abraham Lincoln, the only one of

the succeeding Presidents who won anything like the place in the
popular heart that Washington has always occupied. Washington, while
still young, was one of the richest men in the country; Lincoln, while
young, was one of the poorest; both rendered supreme service to their
country and to freedom; between these two extremes men of many
degrees as regards property holding have occupied the Presidency, the
majority of them being men of moderate means. The lesson to be
drawn from these facts seems to be that the Republic can be greatly
served by rich and poor alike, but has oftenest been served creditably
by men who were neither rich nor poor. In the midst of the present
conflicts between employers and employed, between the classes that
are already well to do and the classes who believe it