USA > California > Addresses delivered before the California Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, 1913 > Part 3
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Our manufactures have grown enormously. Under a system of protective tariff our iron industry has grown so that the steel corporation has I do not know how many millions of capital, but more than a thousand. Great, indeed, beyond all expectations, and, in fact, beyond all expectation you might say of less than fifty years ago, has been the increase in our manufacturing industries. So with agriculture. Not only have agricultural products enor- mously increased in quantity, but also in quality. We have pro- fessors now, traveling up and down the country, delivering lectures on agriculture in the steam trains, so that we have our farmers using the very best seeds, not taking the seeds indiscriminately and sowing them, but using the very best. The result is that the quantity is enormously increased, and the quality is very much better.
So with our educational institutions. Not only with the great universities has there been progress, but the primary schools have likewise enormously increased in numbers and in educational equip- ment and endowment.
The application of physical science in every direction is beyond all calculation. Inventions are multiplied so that we can scarcely keep the run of them. And now we have men conquering the air, literally flying like birds. War, too, has had its victories no less than peace, for all of its instrumentalities have enormously increased in destructive force. The construction of railroads has likewise kept pace with all other material progress. How many thousands
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of miles of railroad we have in this country now, I do not know, but perhaps nearly a hundred thousand.
These are some of the manifestations of material progress which we may put to the credit side of the account. And all these strike the imagination so powerfully that most of us deem them all in all, and measure everything in their terms. We may note this particu- larly on the question of the municipalization of our public utilities. I am not here to say whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. But have not all of you noted the fact that when it is proposed to acquire a public utility, the principal argument used against it is that if the city were to acquire it, it would not be profitable, the city would not make money out of it? That is taking no account at all of that great self-respect which a community necessarily would have if it owned its public utilities, and did not farm them out to others.
And so it is in every field. Everything is valued in terms of money or in terms of material wealth. But is it not too obvious that the perpetuity of our nation depends, not on the increase or better- ment of material means, but rather on the character of the men and women that make up the elements of the nation? This character must be rooted in religion, in the virtues, otherwise it will perish off the face of the earth, as have others before it. It is, indeed, in the best sense true, as John Beattie Crozier affirms, that a spark of high virtue is worth a whole mountain of utility.
It cannot be too often or too earnestly repeated that everything in the way of material manifestation beats only on the outside of us. It can only affect the environment, so that an improved en- vironment simply renders it easier for us to develop as moral beings ought to develop. It of itself cannot develop us; we alone can do that. It remains forever true that every human soul must work out its own salvation. Therefore it is that we must consider whether or not we have improved morally and spiritually as we have materially.
I do not deprecate the material side of us. It is that with which we come in contact every moment of our lives. Who dare doubt that the material exists as he views the eternal procession of the stars? Who does not feel, in the innermost recesses of his being, as he stands beneath the unutterable glory of the starlighted dome of heaven that all this constitutes an expression of the divine mind, and that it exists for him and he for it. Kant, the great philosopher, said that the two things which struck him with more awe than anything else in the world were the stars that blazoned
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the night and the sense of right and wrong. And who can properly deem that anything of which the material universe is composed is evil, when we reflect that it is this which alone furnishes the mode of communication between man and man, and similarly, furnishes the mode of communication between the Divine Power and man ? And it is this which the poet uses as multitudinous material with which to carry us to ineffable spiritual heights.
In this life, surely we must depend upon material things. No matter how deeply your head may be immersed in the stars, to be sane human beings, to be fit for life, you must stand firmly on the ground. But, standing there, we must realize that material things are not of primary, but rather of secondary importance; that they are but some of the means, some of the rungs of the lad- der whereby we may ascend, each one of us, to the highest things of which we are susceptible. If we treat material things as ends, rather than as means, we are lost beyond possibility of redemption. And that is the canker which is eating out the heart of American civilization today, and which will eat that heart out unless it is destroyed. It is that which has produced the enormous gap be- tween the very rich and the very poor, a gap that is increasing day by day. This was what destroyed Rome. This is what will inevit- ably destroy us, unless we find the means to check it. As long as Rome was a city of independent farmers, Rome was indeed great, Rome conquered the world. But when from the conquest of the world she gathered those riches with which she was intoxicated and which led to luxuries such as had never been seen before, and which we see particularly in this country at this day, she became enervated. The small farms became great estates. Villas grew up with slaves and with others that were in reality slaves. The whole campagna, which is now deserted, was covered with magnificent villas of the most luxurious kind. And so in South Italy, on the Mediterranean, there were other villas of almost inconceivable lux- urious appointment.
Where did all this end? It ended in an enormous gap between the very rich and the very poor. The very poor lost all self-respect. They got to be perfectly satisfied with free bread. They did not care to work. All self-respect was lost. As long as they had splendid circuses, as long as they had plenty of gladiatorial shows and plenty of chariot races, together with plenty of free bread, they were satisfied. A people like that was bound to fall, and fall they did before the fresh, the strong, the uncorrupted barbarian tribes.
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And do we not have like luxuries with us? I do not intend here to particularize, but we know perfectly well where these luxuries are, and who constitute the class that enjoys them. We have villas here perhaps more luxurious even than the Roman Senator had. Look at the enermous distance between fortunes like that of Rockefeller, and Carnegie, and the fortune, if it may be so termed, of the poor fellow that lives in the slums, who perhaps never knows where the next meal is to come from. Does anyone suppose that with such a condition as this we can rest secure in the confidence of the per- petuity of this nation? Is it not plain that, in order for a society to move along surely and safely, the different aggregates, or rather, the different units of that society which go to make up the aggre- gate, shall at least be within hearing distance of each other? Can the grand procession of any society move on and keep a congruous procession, a procession which will hold together, when the head of that procession is enormously in advance of the tail of it? What will become of a procession of that kind in the end? It will fall to pieces. And when we talk about the perpetuity of this nation, or of any nation, we mean and must mean that the perpetuity rests, and can only rest, upon a society the units of which march at least in some degree pari passu.
There are other topics which on this occasion it might be well for us to point some attention to. It is perfectly obvious that there is in this country increased lawlessness as manifested by lynchings and violences of many kinds. There is also plain to the observation a disobedience to, and contempt of, constituted authority. We lack now, and are getting to lack more, it seems to me, one of the finest traits of human character, and that is reverence. Without it in some degree, at least, it seems to me the human character lacks something of wholesomeness : reverence-not only reverence for God, but reverence for man. And then again look at the municipal cor- ruption, not only as we have had it evidenced with us, but evidenced in many cities of the American Union.
Take note, also, of the great waste of our natural resources. It makes one shudder when one considers alone the indiscriminate murder of the trees, regardless of other resources which are neces- sary to be conserved-the trees which if once destroyed can perhaps never in full measure be restored. Has Spain recovered from her deforestations ? Have other countries recovered from their defores- tations? This subject has been treated recently in a very thorough manner by our State Superintendent of Schools, Mr. Hyatt. He incorporated his views thereon in his report this year, and I beg all
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of you to secure a copy of Mr. Hyatt's book, and give it a thorough reading. Note the great individual trusts, so-called, some of which are steeped in corruption, and in that connection the railroad cor- porations, as best illustrated in the Harriman system. Where we are going to stop on this, heaven only knows. By the simple de- vice of prohibiting one corporation from owning stock in another we would have prevented such enormous consolidations as Mr. Harriman's. No corporation should be permitted to own a share of stock of another corporation except under very peculiar and ex-
ceptional circumstances. And yet we have permitted it, particu- larly if a corporation declares in its articles of incorporation that it is incorporated for that among other purposes. And these rail- road corporations never have the least intention of paying their debts. They refund them and refund them, and in that way, by keeping alive their corporate debts and their stock, they are enabled to keep up rates. Now, my friends, this is one of the great cankers. It is not natural, it is not wholesome, it is not safe for any one man to have the power that is given to him by the ownership of a great system of transportation.
Yet should we look at the future altogether pessimistically, or pessimistically at all? No. Optimism is what we must believe in. Optimism is what we must endeavor to bring about. Negative optimism is just as bad as pessimism. Sitting down and doing nothing, and expecting that apples and plums will fall in the lap, will not bring apples and plums. If you want apples and plums you must plant the trees, you must take care of the soil, you must follow the trees from day to day in the care of them, before you will get apples and plums. So that if we wish the best to come about, we must try our utmost to bring it about.
The great trouble is that we look upon the material and forget the spiritual. If man would only come to the conclusion, which is so plain to some of us, that he is not made of so much flesh and blood and bone and nerve, that he is not a mere mechanical con- struction, that he is not moved alone by chemistry and physics, but that he is really and essentially a spirit, many problems would be solved. If labor and capital, for instance, would treat with each other, not as they do, from a material stand-point alone, but from the stand-point of the spiritualities, if the man who represents capital would come to the proper conclusion that he is a spirit and not a mechanical construction, and the man who is to give him his labor should come to the same conclusion, there would be no
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trouble. I have said before, and I am satisfied in my own mind that it is so, that these controversies never will be settled until you bridge the gap with the humanities. And when you bridge the gap in that way, then you have it settled, and settled right. And this means that we have got to come to Christ. It was Christ who brought the real humanities to this world. It was Christ who pro- claimed the vital, the immortal doctrine that one man in the soul of him is as good as another man in the soul of him, and that men are indeed brothers. And when we get to Christ, as we must, we will base this nation upon an unshakable foundation. We are our brother's keeper. It has been recognized by Huxley, and by other evolutionists, that the struggle for existence cannot apply to social aggregates. It cannot, in the nature of things. If it did, what would you have? You would have societies drowned, literally drowned, extinguished, in the black sea of selfishness. Never can you apply the evolutionary doctrine of the struggle for existence to humanity. We are our brother's keeper. And until we fully realize that, until we put ourselves, my friends, truly and really under the banner of Christ, these things will not be settled. And I say now that the perpetuity of this nation rests upon that. It rests upon the vital essentiality of Christian doctrine; and unless we maintain that essentiality, unless under its influence we become educated to proper action and conduct, this republic will go down to black death as others have gone. This does not mean socialism, the vain attempt of trying to make the all social units alike; but it means that we must cease measuring everything in terms of the material; it means that we must realize what the human soul is; it means that we must in some degree live with the ideal and breathe with it a purer ether and diviner air; it means that we must draw close to the love for the man that Christ brought to earth. Let us, if we can, give full rein to our optimism, and doing so, let us in imagination picture the American eagle renewing his mighty youth, and from the topmost heights of national grandeur gazing with serene yet glowing eye upon a great people moving steadily forward in the achievement of all that is noblest and best for man- kind, neither unduly exalting the high nor unduly depressing the low, so that each and all, with freedom of opportunity and equality before the law, can see his way clear to the highest development of soul and character.
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MARY, THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON
By Hulda H. B. Brown, Hotel St. Francis, San Francisco, February 22, 1910.
It is said "All great men had great mothers"! It is most fitting that on this, the natal day of the first President of our Republic, we should honor Mary Ball, the wife of Augustine Washington, and the mother of him who was "First in War, First in Peace, and First in the hearts of his Countrymen," General George Washington, the great hero of the American Revolution, to whom as Sons and Daughters we would render homage.
The name "Mary" is ever dear to all Christendom, since the days of the Manger in Bethlehem, and at the Cross; frequent as a Royal name; and Mary Stuart had for playmates, the celebrated "Four Marys." Adverse comments have been made of our Mary Washing- ton, and it remained for two women writers of note, Virginians, now residing in New York, to vindicate the strength and beauty of her character. The wife of the Rev. E. P. Terhune of the Dutch Re- formed Church, better known as Marion Harland, and Mrs. Rofet, a prior wife of an ex-Confederate General and New York Judge-the first on the list of Honorary Vice Presidents General of the Daugh- ters of the American Revolution.
It is said our Mary was a beauty, a belle, and we learn that she was called not only "The Toast of the Gallants of Her Day," but also "Rose of Epping Forest" (seat of the Balls), and the reigning belle of the aristocratic Northern neck of Virginia.
It is easy to imagine her childhood. Children in her day escaped from the nursery at an early age. Neither were they hidden away in convents nor sent to finishing schools. There was no ostentatious "debut," nor "coming out" tea. As soon as a girl was fairly in her "teens," she was marriageable. No lounging, idleness, nor loss of time was permitted. The social customs of the day, enforced habits of self control. Little girls from early babyhood became the constant companions of their mothers, and were treated with respect. Washington writes gravely of "Miss Custis," six years old! They worked samplers, edged handkerchiefs, plaited lace strings, twisted the fine cords that drew into proper bounds their stiff bodices, knitted garters and long hose, took lessons on the harpsichord, danced the minuet, and lent their little hands to "clap muslins" on the great clear starching days, when the lace "steenkirk" and ruffled bosoms,
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and simple kerchiefs, were "gotten up" and crimped into prescribed shape.
No children's books were printed in England until the middle of the eighteenth century, but one Thomas Flint, a Boston printer, appreciating the rhymes that his mother-(in-law) Mrs. Goose, sang to his children, published them in book form, and gave them a name, than which none is more sure of immortality. This, however, was in 1719, too late for our little Mary Ball, born March 6, 1708. She had only the Horn-book as a resource in the long, dark days when the fairest of all books, Nature, lay hidden beneath the snows of winter.
The gentry employed private tutors in their own families, Scotch- men or Englishmen, fresh from the Universities, or young graduates from Princeton, New Jersey, or Faggs Manor, Pennsylvania. Others secured teachers by indenture. Early advertisements in the Virginia Gazette, assured all "single men capable of teaching children to read English, write or cypher, or Greek or Latin and mathematicks, also all dancing masters, that they would meet with good encourage- ment in certain neighborhoods." Yet books were unfashionable at court in England, and probably most of Mary Ball's early school days, were the silent listening to the talk of other people. And there were earnest talkers in Virginia, and the liveliest interest in all kinds of affairs. It was a picturesque time in the life of the colony. Things of interest were always happening.
This we know of the little Mary: She was observant and wise, quiet and reflective. Doubtless she had early opinions of the powers of the Vestries, the African slave-trade, the right of a Virginia Assembly to the privileges of Parliament, and other grave questions. Stories were told around the fireside on winter nights, when the wooden shutters settled-for rarely before 1720 were "window sasht with crystal glass." Men returning to England were waylaid on the high seas, robbed and murdered. In Virginia waters, the dreaded "Black-beard" had it all his own way for a while. Finally his grim head is brought home on the bowsprit of a Virginia ship, and a drinking cup, rimmed with silver, made of the skull that held his wicked brains. Of course, it could not be expected that he could rest in his grave, under these circumstances. And so until 50 years ago, when possibly the drinking cup was reclaimed by his restless spirit, his phantom sloop might be seen spreading its ghostly sails in the moonlight on the York river, and putting into Ware creek, to hide ill-gotten gains in the old Stone house, where people talked of strange, unreal lights, peeping through the tiny port holes of this old Stone house, believed to have been built by Captain John
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Smith; while flitting across the doorway had been seen the dusky form of Pocahontas, clad in her buckskin robe, with a white plume in her hair, keeping tryst-perhaps with Captain Smith! Moreover, Nathaniel Brown, instigator of the famous Bacon Rebellion of 1676, a century before our own Declaration of Independence, had risen from his grave in York river, and had been seen at the Stone house with his compatriots, Drummond, Bland and Hansford.
Doubtless such stories inspired many of the little Mary's early dreams and caused her to tremble, as she lay in her trundle-bed, kept all day beneath the great four poster and drawn out at night, unless indeed her loving mother allowed her to climb the four steps leading to the feather sanctuary behind the heavy curtains where she reposed in state.
These days of Mary Ball's childhood were the days known as the "Good old time in old Virginia." It was the life of the family. Portraits of the times show us faces without those lines which care furrows in the faces of the men of today. It was a time of most affluent abundance. The common people lived in the greatest comfort as far as food was concerned; game and fish being plentiful. In their general tone of character, the aristocracy of Virginia resembled the landed gentry of England. As a class they were intelligent, polished in manners, hospitable and sturdy in their loyalty to state and church. When the Virginia gentleman went forth with his household his cavalcade consisted of the mounted white males of his family, the coach and six (lumbering through the sands) and a retinue of mounted servants and led horses bringing up the rear. There was no newspaper until 1736.
The Colonial Dame had small knowledge of any world better than her own. She managed well her large family and household, and however and wherever her lot was cast, she endured to the end, fully assured that when she went to sleep behind the marble slab in the garden or churchyard an enumeration of her virtues would adorn her tombstone. Life was too often a brief enjoyment, and little Mary Ball, demurely reading from the tombstones in old St. Stephen's church, had small occasion for arithmetic, beyond the numbers of thirty or forty years, at which age, as an epitaph said of a Colonial Dame, "Having piously lived and comfortably died, she left behind the sweet perfume of a good reputation."
Mary Ball was only thirteen when her mother died, who had successively been the Widow Johnson, the Widow Ball, and the Widow Hewes. Henceforth, Mary's home was with her married half sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson Bonum, residing in Westmore-
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land County. Around her lived the families of Mason, Taliaferro, Mountjoy, Travers, Taylor, Fitzhugh, Newton, Lee, Washington and others-society leaders in 1730. These were the gallants whose "Toast" she was; who wore velvet and much silk, the long vests that Charles II invented, curled powdered wigs, silver and gold lace, silken hose and brilliant buckles; doubtless visited by their tidewater friends, the Randolphs, Harrisons, Byrds, Nelsons and Carters. It was the fashion to present locks of hair, tied in true lovers' knots, to work book marks, to manufacture valentines of thinnest cut paper. They had no dreams sadder than mystic dreams on brides' cakes. They sang the old time songs, danced the old time dances, played the old time English games around the Christ- mas fires, burning nuts and naming apple seeds, and loving their loves with an "A" or a "B."
George Washington Parke Custis said Washington inherited his personal appearance from his mother, whom he knew in middle life; that she was called handsome and distingué, and we can imagine her on state occasions fittingly garbed in paduasoy and tabby velvet that could stand alone, softened by laces, a superb woman in every particular. She was a fearless horsewoman. At thirteen she owned her own "mount," her own plush saddle. At twenty, we find her "in habit, hat and feather" at home on her own dapple gray, "pacing" through the lanes in Westmoreland (she was too good a horsewoman for a mad gallop). Evidently, our Mary was "hard to please," in that in times when marriages were early she did not resign her sceptre until the ripe age of twenty-two-not at "love inspiring sixteen," as the custom then was. A late marriage was condemned as eccentric and unwise. The Virginia belle was warned "That those who walked through the woods with a haughty spirit would have to stoop at last, and pick up a crooked stick."
When she was married in 1730, it was a long way from October, 1752, when the calendar was changed, and we had the supposed privileges of leap year thrust upon us. Mary Ball married a widower of experience and dignity, aged thirty-six, Augustine Wash- ington, whose two older sons were devoted brothers to her eldest, George. In her married home she found a book which became her constant companion. On the fly-leaf was its owner's name, "Jane Washington." She added in characteristic handwriting, "and Mary Washington," thus showing a spirit above petty vanity or jealousy of her predecessor. The title page read "Sir Matthew Hale's Con- templations." She read it aloud to her step-sons and her own
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