What, courage from companionship with the past? The pessimist says,
"Impossible! The past was so much better than the present. See how the
country is going to the dogs!" and they point to the revelations of
dishonesty in high places. "There were no such blots on our records when
the country was young."
A public man gave an effective answer to such croakers when he said:
"As we go on year by year reading in the newspapers of the dreadful
things that are occurring; wicked rich men, wicked politicians and
wicked men of all kinds, we are apt to feel that we have fallen on very
evil times. But are we any worse than our fathers were? John Adams, in
1776, was Secretary of War. He wrote a letter which is still in
existence, and told of the terrible corruption that prevailed in the
country; he told how everybody was trying to rob the soldiers, rob the
War Department, and he said he was really ashamed of the times in which
he lived. When Jefferson was President of the United States it was
thought that the whole country was going to be given over to French
infidelity. When Jackson was President people thought the country
ruined, because of his action in regard to the United States Bank. And
we know how in Polk's time the Mexican War was an era of rascality and
dishonesty that appalled the whole country."
It is a mistake to look back a generation or two and say, "The good old
days were better than these." In the address already referred to the
speaker continued:
"Only thirty years ago, on my first visit to California, I went with a
friend to the mining district in the Sierras. One summer evening we sat
upon the flume looking over the landscape. My friend was a distinguished
man of great ability. In the distance the sun was setting, reflecting
its light on the dome of the Capitol of the state, at Sacramento, twenty
miles off. He turned to me and said suddenly: 'I would like to be you
for one reason, that you are thirty years younger than I am, and they
are going to be thirty of the greatest years the world has ever seen.'
He is dead now, but his words were prophetic. He and I used to talk
about how we could send power down into the mines. An engine would fill
the mine with smoke and gases, and yet we must have power to run the
drills, etc., using compressed air. How easy to-day, just to drop a wire
down and send the power of electricity! At that time there was but a
single railroad running across the continent, which took a single
sleeping car each day. Look at the difference now, with six great trunk
lines sending out more than a dozen trains, and more than a hundred
sleeping cars each day."
Students of American history know something of the fears of early
adherents of the United States Government lest the republic prove a
failure, and of the threats of doubters and disaffected citizens to do
their best to replace the republic by a monarchy. But comparatively few
realize how great were the fears, and how brazenly the prophecies were
spoken.
An examination of "The Complete Anas of Thomas Jefferson," the
collection of private memoranda made by the patriot when he was
successively Secretary of State, Vice-President, and President,
discloses the fact that some of the gravest of these fears were held by
those high in authority, and that the prophecies of evil came from men
who were leaders in the nation.
On April 6, 1792, President Washington, in conversation with Jefferson,
"expressed his fear that there would, ere long, be a separation of the
Union, that the public mind seemed dissatisfied and tending to this." On
October 1, 1792, he spoke to the Secretary of his desire to retire at
the end of his term as President. "Still, however, if his aid was
thought necessary to save the cause to which he had devoted his life
principally, he would make the sacrifice of a longer continuance."
On April 7, 1793, Tobias Lear, in conversation with Jefferson, spoke
pessimistically of the affairs of the country. The debt, he was sure,
was growing on the country in spite of claims to the contrary. He said
that "the man who vaunted the present government so much on some
occasions was the very man who at other times declared that it was a
poor thing, and such a one as could not stand, and he was sensible they
only esteemed it as a stepping-stone to something else."
On December 1, 1793, an influential Senator (name given) said to several
of his fellow Senators that things would never go right until there was
a President for life, and a hereditary Senate.
On December 27, 1797, Jefferson said that Tenche Coxe told him that a
little before Alexander Hamilton went out of office, he said: "For my
part I avow myself a monarchist; I have no objection to a trial being
made of this thing of a republic, but, ... etc."
On February 6, 1798, it was reported to Jefferson that a man of
influence in the Government had said, "I have made up my mind on this
subject; I would rather the old ship should go down than not." Later he
qualified his words, making his statement hypothetical, by adding, "if
we are to be always kept pumping so."
On January 24, 1800, it was reported to Jefferson that, at a banquet in
New York, Alexander Hamilton made no remark when the health of the
President was proposed, but that he asked for three cheers when the
health of George III was suggested.
On March 27, 1800, the Anas record: "Dr. Rush tells me that within a few
days he has heard a member of Congress lament our separation from Great
Britain, and express his sincere wishes that we were again dependent on
her."
On December 13, 1803, Jefferson told of the coming to President Adams of
a minister from New England who planned to solicit funds in New England
for a college in Green County, Tennessee. He wished to have the
President's endorsement of the project. But "Mr. Adams ... said he saw
no possibility of continuing the union of the States; that their
dissolution must take place; that he therefore saw no propriety in
recommending to New England men to promote a literary institution in the
South; that it was in fact giving strength to those who were to be their
enemies, and, therefore, he would have nothing to do with it."
One who reads bits like these from Jefferson's private papers
appreciates more fully some of the grave difficulties that confronted
the country's early leaders; he rejoices more than ever before that the
United States emerged so triumphantly from troubled waters until, little
more than a century after those days of dire foreboding, it was showing
other nations the way to democracy; he takes courage in days of present
doubt and uncertainty, assured that the country which has already
weathered so many storms will continue to solve its grave problems, and
will be more than ever a beacon light to the world.