The Americanism of Washington | Page 3

creed
heated white hot in the furnace of conviction and hammered into shape
on the anvil of life; a vision commanding men to follow it
whithersoever it may lead them. And it was the subordination of the
personal self to that ideal, that creed, that vision, which gave eminence
and glory to Washington and the men who stood with him.
This is the truth that emerges, crystalline and luminous, from the
conflicts and confusions of the Revolution. The men who were able to
surrender themselves and all their interests to the pure and loyal service
of their ideal were the men who made good, the victors crowned with
glory and honor. The men who would not make that surrender, who
sought selfish ends, who were controlled by personal ambition and the
love of gain, who were willing to stoop to crooked means to advance
their own fortunes, were the failures, the lost leaders, and, in some
cases, the men whose names are embalmed in their own infamy. The

ultimate secret of greatness is neither physical nor intellectual, but
moral. It is the capacity to lose self in the service of something greater.
It is the faith to recognize, the will to obey, and the strength to follow, a
star.
Washington, no doubt, was pre-eminent among his contemporaries in
natural endowments. Less brilliant in his mental gifts than some, less
eloquent and accomplished than others, he had a rare balance of large
powers which justified Lowell's phrase of "an imperial man." His
athletic vigor and skill, his steadiness of nerve restraining an intensity
of passion, his undaunted courage which refused no necessary risks and
his prudence which took no unnecessary ones, the quiet sureness with
which he grasped large ideas and the pressing energy with which he
executed small details, the breadth of his intelligence, the depth of his
convictions, his power to apply great thoughts and principles to
every-day affairs, and his singular superiority to current prejudices and
illusions--these were gifts in combination which would have made him
distinguished in any company, in any age.
But what was it that won and kept a free field for the exercise of these
gifts? What was it that secured for them a long, unbroken opportunity
of development in the activities of leadership, until they reached the
summit of their perfection? It was a moral quality. It was the evident
magnanimity of the man, which assured the people that he was no
self-seeker who would betray their interests for his own glory or rob
them for his own gain. It was the supreme magnanimity of the man,
which made the best spirits of the time trust him implicitly, in war and
peace, as one who would never forget his duty or his integrity in the
sense of his own greatness.
From the first, Washington appears not as a man aiming at prominence
or power, but rather as one under obligation to serve a cause. Necessity
was laid upon him, and he met it willingly. After Washington's
marvellous escape from death in his first campaign for the defence of
the colonies, the Rev. Samuel Davies, fourth president of Princeton
College, spoke of him in a sermon as "that heroic youth, Colonel
Washington, whom I can but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in

so signal a manner for some important service to his country." It was a
prophetic voice, and Washington was not disobedient to the message.
Chosen to command the Army of the Revolution in 1775, he confessed
to his wife his deep reluctance to surrender the joys of home,
acknowledged publicly his feeling that he was not equal to the great
trust committed to him, and then, accepting it as thrown upon him "by a
kind of destiny," he gave himself body and soul to its fulfilment
refusing all pay beyond the mere discharge of his expenses, of which he
kept a strict account, and asking no other reward than the success of the
cause which he served.
"Ah, but he was a rich man," cries the carping critic; "he could afford to
do it." How many rich men to-day avail themselves of their opportunity
to indulge in this kind of extravagance, toiling tremendously without a
salary, neglecting their own estate for the public benefit, seeing their
property diminished without complaint, and coming into serious
financial embarrassment, even within sight of bankruptcy, as
Washington did, merely for the gratification of a desire to serve the
people? This is indeed a very singular and noble form of luxury. But
the wealth which makes it possible neither accounts for its existence
nor detracts from its glory. It is the fruit of a manhood superior alike to
riches and to poverty, willing to risk all, and to use all, for the common
good.
Was it in any sense