War is now a genuinely
Indian performance, just as Washington saw one hundred and fifty years
ago that it ought to be.
The silent Washington's antipathy to the press finds an exact parallel
in our own day. He called the writers of the press "infamous
scribblers." President Cleveland called them "ghouls." But it must be
confessed that the newspapers of Washington's time surpassed those of
the present day in violence of language, and in lack of prophetic
insight and just appreciation of men and events. When Washington retired
from the Presidency the _Aurora_ said, "If ever a Nation was debauched
by a man, the American Nation has been debauched by Washington."
Some of the weaknesses or errors of the Congresses of Washington's time
have been repeated in our own day, and seem as natural to us as they
doubtless seemed to the men of 1776 and 1796. Thus, the Continental
Congress incurred all the evils of a depreciated currency with the same
blindness which afflicted the Congress of the Southern Confederacy and
the Union Congress during the Civil War, or the Democrat-Populist party
of still more recent times. The refusal of the Congress of 1777 to carry
out the agreement made with the Hessian prisoners at Saratoga reminds
one of the refusal of Congress, in spite of the public exhortations of
our present Executive, and his cabinet, to carry out the understanding
with Cuba in regard to the commercial relations of the island with the
United States.
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