r ALE UNIVERSITY
00114 19??

) a

•V;^imiiimimm}i>9iimiimiMMii>Siii>^^^

WASHINGTON AS A
CITIZEN AN ADDRESS BY
HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL
BEFORE
THE W ASHINGTON ASSOCIATION
OF NEW JERSEY
With Greeting bij ALFRED ELMER MILLS, Presideut,
and Proceedings in the Celebration

AT WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS

IN MORRISTOWN, N. J

d>-3C'v€>34"

/-^

ADDRESS
Before the Members of the
WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION OF NEW JERSEY

The meeting was called to order by President Alfred
Elmer Mills.
After the singing of the National Anthem, America, Presi
dent Mills said :
GENTLEMEN OF THE WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION:
It is mighty nice to have the privilege of extending words
of welcome to you and your guests once more, although I am
sorry to displace Brother Cutler through whom I sent you a
vicarious greeting last year.
Our dear old president Mr. Roberts once suggested that
we should have a diflferent presiding officer each year so that
each member could preside in tum but as it would take about
500 years to give all our members a chance, and as each mem
ber insisted upon presiding during the first hundred years the
plan was abandoned and today I must consider myself a sort
of composit chairman representing you all.
I may be mistaken in my conclusion but you look just as
happy as in the good old days when, you decided that Dr. Pier-
son and I knew nothing about making strong punch.
If John Barleycorn had not misbehaved and become an
extremist we might have had our punch today.
That it is dangerous to be an extremist is illustrated by
an epitaph which I saw when down South last winter. It was
this —

"Ma loved Pa
Pa loved women
Ma caught Pa
With some in swimmin
Here lies Pa"
Your Association is, as usual, in excellent condition not
withstanding it has had to grapple with that Demon called
"High Cost of Living:"
Probably most of us are acquainted with that same Demon
and can sympathize with the Southern darkey who after he
had lost his fourth wife had a call from his Pastor.
In response to the Pastor's solicitous inquiry as to how he
felt he replied "I fell like I was in the hands of an all-wise
and unscrupulous providence."
With the passing of the years we are obliged to face the
sad fact that many of our best beloved friends are no longer
with us.
During 1921 our death roll was heavy.
Among those who have gone is our good Vice President^
Dr. Henry A. Henriques, whose genial presence did so much
to make our meetings a success.
Since our gathering of a year ago the chaotic situation
prevailing in many parts of the world has made us ap-
preciats the fact that the situation here, bad as it is, might
be much worse.
Momentous events are taking place.
The leading nations are trying to make this a safe and a
better world, as is evidenced by the recent disarmament con
ference at Washington which Lloyd George, Prime Minister of
England, referred to a couple of weeks ago, as "one of the
greatest achievements in the history of the world."
But after all, in the last analysis, the question whether
the future is to bring peace and prosperity to the peoples of
the earth depends largely upon its citizens.
Good citizenship is absolutely essential to the solution of
our problems and no better way to draw inspiration of that
character can be found than in the study of the great Wash
ington. \ \ \

Our speaker today is one of America's leading citizens.
His wide learning, great ability and statesmanlike quali
ties have brought him distinction as a Man of Letters, as His
torian, as College President, as Minister to Switzerland, as
Minister to the Netherlands, as Ambassador to Germany and in
numerous other ways.
I take great pleasure in introducing the Hon. David Jayne
Hill, whose subject is "Washington as a Citizen."

"WASHINGTON AS A CITIZEN"
AN ADDRESS BY HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Association : Driving
over from Newark yesterday to Morristown, there kept run
ning through my mind some words of Sir William Hamilton:
"On earth there is nothing great but man; in man there is
nothing great but mind." Whether the occurrence to my
thought of those words was owing to the companionship of
Judge Mills, or my visit to the Washington Association of New
Jersey at Morristown, I am not quite sure. But I am certain of
this : that in all the great historic movements of the world, in
religion, in philosophy and in government, we are led back in
our thought to some great person, whose genius or character
or action has given a new direction or a new impetus to the
development of man. Among those who, by their thought
and conduct, have created great periods in the form or the pur
pose of government, none will deny a pre-eminent place to
Washington. A soldier, a statesman and a citizen, he stands
out in the bright galaxy of wise and heroic men who fought in
the American War for Independence and founded our American
system of constitutional government, as the bright particular
star. This distinction has been recognized not only by our own
countrymen, who gather in every part of the nation on this
day to celebrate the anniversary of his birth, but, for diflferent
reasons, no doubt, in many other countries. Even in England,
the arch-rebel of 1776 is now claimed as a great Englishman.
The Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire, an old monastic
foundation once owned and occupied as a residence for four
generations by a branch of the Washington family, has been
purchased, fitted up with ancient furniture and, in the name
of George Washington, made the seat of a cult of Anglo- Ameri
can friendship. Less than a year ago, a bust of Washington,
a replica of Houdon's famous original, has been placed in a
crypt of St. Paul's, in London, and near the busts of Nelson
and Wellington; and a statue, presented by Virginia, has been
erected in that "parterre of heroes", Trafalgar Square, where.

ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL 7
unhappily, it is dwarfed by its colossal surroundings. This
fact has led the Marquess of Crewe, in a recent article to
remark : "It would perhaps be an exaggeration to say of him,
as was said of the effigies of Brutus and Cassius, missing
from the Roman professions, that his figure outshines all others
by its absence; but if the statue could be transferred from
Trafalgar Square to Westminster Abbey, a gap would be filled,
and many minds would be profoundly gratified."
In our own country, with uninterrupted expressions of
veneration, we have recalled and permanently perpetuated the
memories that cling round the hallowed places, hallowed for all
time by the sojourn and activities of Washington; and it is
a great privilege, gentlemen, to ccme to this spot, twice the
headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of our Revolutionary
Army, where the spirit of patriotism has singularly remained
a dominant note in the life of this community.
I do not know that the imagination has done for Mor
ristown all that it has done for Mount Vernon. There, a cus
todian, long in service, sees or believes he sees, in the deepen
ing shades of evening, th majestic figure of the General, clad in
his great blue mantle, Avalking amidst the trees and meditating
upon the fate of the nation that he loved. Sometimes, with
head erect, alert and vigorous with vivacity, he seems to this
undoubting observer, to rejoice in some national event of
which he appears to have knowledge. At other times, with an
air of dejection, he seems like one bearing a heavy burden of
sorrow, and appears to be filled with doubt and apprehension,
as with bowed head and hesitating steps he moves down the
distant vista and vanishes from view.
Now, if one could share this privilege of visualization, it
would be interesting, indeed, to watch for the mysterious smile
that miist pass over his countenance, when visiting delega
tions come, at the bidding of crowded heads, to plant trees in
the grounds of Mount Vernon, or to place garlands at the iron
gate of the plain brick vault. What a host they are, these pil
grims of the Old World, whose ancestors looked down upon
ours as rebels, fanatics, and hopeless idealists, who actually
believed in the capacity of ordinary men to govern themselves.

8 ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL
and to build a habitation of freedom for posterity which in
ternal dissension and the smiting hand of power could not
destroy !
And now, why is it not destroyed? What guards it, to
day, from destruction, this great edifice of free, constitutional
government in which we live? What is it, but the faith and
virtue of the citizens of the Republic? And what gives vigor
to their minds, and fidelity to their hearts, if not the great
principles, — the distinctive and the often combatted principles
— upon which the American Republic was founded?
I turn then, today, to a theme which, in all the discourses
about Washington, and in all the acts of commemoration in
honor of him, I have never heard distinctly emphasized, —
Washington as a Citizen; not the great soldier, not the great
statesman, not the great President, but that which every one
of us by our own will may be, without the distinction or the
emoluments of public office, simply yet grandly, an American
Citizen. There are two methods by which we may approach this
theme. One is by setting up an ideal standard of citizenship,
a construction of the mind, as we may conceive or imagine it,
and then to compare the conduct of Washington with that
ideal. The other is, without any theory or any prejudice or
any standard, simply to state objectively what Washington as
a citizen did or said, leaving to each one's judgment the con
clusion to be drawn from the contemplation of the picture thus
presented to the mind; and it is this latter method which I
shall now briefly apply.
If we accept Washington's testimony, the happiest hours
of his existence were those passed in the tranquil seclusion
which, in those days of difficult transportation, really meant
almost perfect isolation on his estate at Mount Vernon. As a
young man, he had defended the western frontier against the
incursions of the French and the Indians, and in the State of
Virginia he held a high military position; but he was not a
lover of fighting and never resorted to warlike methods or
action without a sufficient and reasonable cause, He was a
lover of peace and happiest in tranquility.

ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL §
For political life, in its ordinary sense, he had no taste
whatever. Neft specially endowed with the gift of ready
speech, he had no aspiration to be known as an orator, and was
never known as one. He set little value upon the applause of
public assemblies. He was long a member of the Virginia
House of Burgesses, and also, from the beginning, of the Con
tinental Congress; but his great influence in these bodies was
owing far less to his public utterances than to the confidence
in his wisdom as a judicious adviser.
It was in no spirit of bravado or of personal ambition that
Washington threw his whole being into the cause of the War
for Independence. No truthful revision of history — ^and men
are now much engaged in revising history — can ever accept a
pretense that he could, under any circumstances, have favored
an indefinite continuance of colonial dependence in relation
to the mother-country, or that any other relation than
that of subordination would, at that time, have been
satisfactory to any political party in England. There was,
from the continental character of the American colonies, an
utter impossibility, wholly apart from that of submitting to
foreign dominion, either by a King or by a Parliament, that a
nation composed of free men should be ruled from an island
whose only possibility of augmented power consisted in as
serting it over distant quarters of the globe. The very ex
pression "Continental Congress" conveyed, and was intended to
convey, a revolt against an imperial regime in which, if Ameri
ca was to play in it any role at all, it must necessarily be one of
perpetual subordination on the part of a country destined by
its nature and its possibilities to become greater
and greater, to one whose claim to rule over it rested upon an
indefensible moral and legal claim to supremacy. Washington
saw this. He saw it clearly, and was, therefore, a convinced
believer in immediate American Independence, for which an
urgent cause was given by a spirit of arbitrary domination
which, if triumphant, would have sealed the fate of the colon
ies for decades, if not for centuries, to come. At the second
Continental Congress, therefore, he appeared in his uniform
as a Virginia colonel and wrote to a friend in England : "The

10 ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL
peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with
blood or inhabited by slaves." That is strong language, gentle
men. Now, happily, today, through participation in a common
cause and a profound change in public sentiment, on both sides
of the Atlantic, we stand in better relations with the nation
against which Washington fought. But we shall gain noth
ing in friendship with any people by an attempt to denature
history. The breach with England was far more than a schism
between political parties of the same people, as now many try
to represent it ; and it is a perversion of the truth to claim that
Washington, the first real out-and-out American, an American
for seven years, an American in the midst of dreadful suffer
ings, as the traditions of this town tell you, was really only a
disgruntled colonial, or at heart just an ordinary Englishman,
or an Englishman like Conway, or Barre, or Pitt, who defended
America in Parliament at that time. Pitt's thesis was this, —
mark it well — that "the distinction beween legislation and tax
ation is necessary to liberty." Since only the Commons have
power to vote taxes, and the Americans are not represented in
Parliament, he argues, there exists no right in Parliament to
tax the Americans; and yet, he affirms, the Americans,
being subjects of Great Britain, though not taxable by the
British House of Commons, are subject to the combined legis
lation of the Commons, the Lords, and the Crown, which are
equally legislative bodies, to which all British "subjects" must
submit. Now, Washington's thesis was very different. It was,
that the American people were, and of right ought to be, a
self-governing people, who owed no allegiance to the Crown
and the Lords of England that was not perfectly voluntary,
and that these had no rightful authority to legislate for them.
Government — this was Washington's thesis — government
should be representative, and the American colonists were no
more truly represented by the Crown or the Lords of England
than they were in the Commons. They had not chosen them.
That was Washington's thesis.
Now, it is time that we should realize that there was, and

ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL 11
is, a great gulf between the British and the American theories
of government. You will not accuse me of making any assault
upon British imperialism, I am sure, when I point out this
difference; but it would involve a confusion of thought to
affirm that there is no essential difference, or to assume that
Washington was not aware of it, when it was the mainspring
and justification of all his years of combat and sacrifice and
desperate struggle.
Honest international amity at present, based on reason,
interest, and growth of enlightenment, — very sure and true
foundations for international amity, an amity which we should
earnestly cultivate as far as possible — does not require to be
strengthened on our part by an extenuation of the past, or by
an endeavor, in circumstances which call for a change in policy,
to represent that, in some mystical manner, there was no dis
union or hard feeling, and that amity has always existed.
Right-minded men do well to forgive dead generations for
a hostility that no longer exists, upon the assurance and some
evidence that it is disavowed, and not likely to be repeated;
but an effort to efface and extinguish a conflict of principles
by the Hegelian method of asserting that negation and affirma
tion are the same thing, when seen in their higher unity, is
impossible to a sound intelligence and a conscientious loyalty to
the truth. To apply the conclusion, you cannot honor Washing
ton, as you do honor him in your hearts and minds, unless you
are ready to admit that the cause for which he imperilled his
life, until it was triumphant, was in itself, and must stand
forever, as a good cause, as a justified cause, and a cause which
it would have been basely ignominious, as well as technically
treasonable, with Benedict Arnold and Charles Lee, to have
abandoned in the midst of the struggle. I cannot, therefore,
listen with any patience to any American when he asserts, or
implies, as I have heard it both asserted and implied, that it
would have been better if the War for Independence had never
occurred, and if we were, today, a part of the British Empire,
now preferably referred to as the British Commonwealth. I
should prefer to maintain the thesis, that it was the example
of the American revolt that made possible the very idea of a

12 ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HlLL
British Commonwealth, by exposing the futility of empire in
its old historic sense. (Applause).
We are today, as a nation, with very great prestige, reach
ing out the hand of friendship and offering the blessings and
security of peace in the name of impartial justice to all the
other peoples of the world. It is, gentlemen, a great historic
moment, when it is a joy to be alive, and to be an American.
(Applause). But if — let me say this — but if, as the price of
it, and in return for international amity and understanding, I
had to forget and renounce the glory of the American War for
Independence, or to obscure its triumph by some wish for ab
sorption into some larger and wider relationship, I should wish
that I had not lived to see this day. (Applause).
The American Revolution was no immature fruit of poli
tical philosophy, no sudden plunge into the uncertainties of an
untried freedom, no scheme of ambitious leaders to secure per
sonal advantage, but the clear and reasoned determination of
the people, or of a large portion of the people to be rid, forever
rid, of a relation of dependence and subordination that brought
them no real protection and much humiliation. Needed laws
were denied them, and their commerce and industries were
repressed. Now, it was not against law that they were rebell
ing. Their revolt was made in the name of law. The protest
of the colonies was not primarily against the tax, nor yet
against the withholding of representation in the law-making
body, but against the King's refusal to grant the colonies a
government based on law. Read your Declaration of Indepen
dence again, and do not forget these passages. The first charge
"submitted to a candid world," to use the language of the De
claration, is : "He has refused his assent to laws of immediate
and pressing importance and necessary for the public good."
That was the gravamen in that terrible indictment. It runs
through the whole twelve subsequent accusations of misrule,
ascending through the entire gamut of complaint with increas
ing intensity, declaring, among other things, "He has obstruc
ted the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws
for establishing judiciary powers"; and ending with the climax,
as if it were the very acme of governmental perversity: "he

ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL U
has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign
to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws, giving
his assent to their pretended acts of legislation." The claim
to law — read it again — the claim to law, as the most precious
possession of citizenship, recurs at intervals throughout the re
mainder of the document. Three times, in the midst of the
fourteen additional specifications of usurpation, the writer of
the Declaration returns to his demand for unperverted law as
the one central purpose of the document. (Applause).
Throughout twelve years of public debate, which preceded
the final act of separation, it was the conviction of great jurists,
on both sides of the Atlantic, that resistance to the encroach
ments of the Crown and the Parliament was justified by all the
traditions of English liberty. But who, in England, could, if
disposed, resist those encroachments? The American colonists
did resist them, and thereby they did a service for those tradi
tions which is not to be denied. They had taken a step in ad
vance of the mother-country, which did not dare to challenge
the throne. Why? Because the throne was the strong bond
of empire, as it is today. But the American colonists were ripe
for independence. They had reached that maturity of political
development, which, as Turgot said, entitled them to separate,
as the ripened leaves of autumn fall from the parent tree. Al
ready they were capable of assuming those responsibilities in
the family of nations which independence implies, and of main
taining that condition of public peace and private order without
which no government has a right to exist.
Now, it was a new citizenship, in no sense identical with
that under which he was born, that inspired Washington,
when he responded to the call from Massachusetts, where
blood had already been shed, and under the old elm tree at
Cambridge took the oath as Commander-in-Chief of the Con
tinental ArmJ^
If the General was the first military man of his time
among the colonists, it was not in the spirit of a professional
soldier that he assumed his* duties, but as the citizen most
fitted for his task. "If you speak of solid information and sound
judgment," said Patrick Henry, "Colonel Washington is un-

14 ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL
doubtedly the greatest man upon the floor." Rising in his
place, the chosen leader modestly thanked Congress for the
honor it had bestowed upon him, declining the offer of com
pensation, and adding, in words which are worthy of perpetual
remembrance, "I will keep an exact account of my expenses;
those, I doubt not, will be discharged, and that is all I desire."
No bonus for Washington! (Prolonged applause). No salary
for Washington! (Applause). For Washington, the service
of a citizen.Now, it was, in truth, for a conception of citizenship differ
ent from any that the world had known, that the war was
fought. How faithful to it the great leader was, was shown
when, in May, 1782, when the dilatory procedure of Congress —
Congresses are so much alike — had created in the army a spirit
of unrest and dissatisfaction that made the effort of the strug
gle seem almost barren of results. Looking to their General
as the one firm, dependable reality in the discouraging situa
tion, an address was presented to him, recognizing him as the
only means of saving the country, and intimating that he
should assert himself as a controlling authority in civil affairs,
to whose command the army would rally in support.
Unquestionably, the address presented to Washington
meant that, if he would consent to receive it, a crown was with
in his grasp ; and he himself regarded it as making this sugges
tion. His reply was a luminous expression of his character.
"Be assured, Sir," he said, "no occurrence ,in the course of the
war has given me more painful sensations than your informa
tion of there being such ideas existing in the army as you have
expressed, and which I must view with abhorrence and repre
hend with severity. I am much at a loss to conceive what part
of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address
which seems to me big with the greatest mischiefs that can
befall my country. Let me conjure you. Sir, then, if you have
any regard for the country, concern for yourself or posterity,
or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind,
and never communicate, as from yourself or anyone else, a sen
timent of the like nature." (Applause).

ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID .lAYNE HILL 15
What was it that aroused in Washington such indignation,
such manifest resentment?
I have recently, thinking of this occasion, read with deep
est interest, portions of Washington's voluminous correspon
dence, in which his most intimate thoughts find full expression.
The impression left on my mind, which, if time permitted,
could be fortified by extensive citations, is, that, although he
was not, in the strict. sense, a political philosopher, he had a
very clear personal conception of what government should be,
and of the citizen's personal relation to government. As it
appeared to his mind, government should be founded wholly
upon the nature of the citizen, — the nature of the citizen, as
a moral personality responsible to his Creator for his conduct,
endowed with freedom and the possessor of inherent rights,
which government should never attempt, and never be permit
ted, to take away. In order that it might not do so, governments
should never be imposed upon society by an arbitrary external
force. Force is necessary to protect rights and to punish the
violation of them, and so long as unjust men exist and possess
power, such violation will occur ; but the force that is to protect
men should proceed from themselves, by their own free and
publicly organized determination, should be limited in such a
manner that it may not itself become a violator of inherent per
sonal rights, and should always be under their control.
With such a conception of the citizen, and of government,
Washington could no more permit himself to become a per
sonal dictator than he could accept the absolute authority of
the King. He had challenged not only the authority of the King, but
also the absolute pretensions of Parliament, in which the Col
onies were not even represented. In harmony with this con
ception, he could not even accept the authority of the Contin
ental Congress, or of the Legislature of Virginia, or of any
other legislative body to govern absolutely, without restriction
of any kind even by a majority, for the reason that there are
in moral human personality inherent rights which majorities
have never bestowed, and which, therefore, no legitimate au-
thdrity can take away.

16 ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL
The basic idea of the whole revolutionary movement was,
of course, personal liberty, — freedom to think, to act, to trade,
to acquire and possess property without fear of expropriation,
to develop one's faculties, to rise to any station in society for
which one's native endowments or industry might fit him.
It involved the sweeping away, the entire sweeping away, of
all obstacles to the accomplishment of these endsj Rank and
titles were to be abandoned. The individual was to count for
what he was, subject to no attainder.
The result in practice was not an unmixed blessing. Un
limited freedom menaced private rights and public order. The
period from the conclusion of peace to the adoption of the Con
stitution, usually referred to as the "Critical Period", was, to
intelligent minds, one of uncertainty and of gloom.
During these four years, Washington was merely a pri
vate citizen in this critical period of our country's history.
His time was largely devoted to a consideration of the interests
of his country and in finding means of establishing the equili
brium between liberty and order.
He did not need the results of his observation to convince
him that unregulated democracy was a dangerous experiment.
It involved both weakness and despotism; — weakness, because
under it government had no cohesion or continuity of action,
and was blown about by every wind of doctrine and every
private interest; despotism, because apparent majorities were
found always to be subject to a selfish control by interested
minorities, regardless of the general good.
The only bars to anarchy, at that time, were the Consti
tutions of the several States. These happily were founded on
Bills of Rights, but their imperfections were numerous. The
chief defect in the whole system was the absence of any truly
national law or the authority to create or to execute it. The
old confederation was a rope of sand. It was this that gave
to Washington his chief concern; for, notwithstanding the
struggle for government by law, the law was still non-existent.
We cannot too frequently recall what was original and dis
tinctive in our system of federated representative government,
in which every form of public authority was intended to *e

ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL 17
deliberately limited by law, in the sense that law is the per
manent expression of the reasoned will of the people.
First of all, that will, proceeding from a consciousness of
moral personality and accountability, guards itself against the
govemment it would create by according to government only
definite and limited powers. It makes that charter a funda
mental law, by which the legality of all acts and statutes pro
posed by the National or the State legislatures is to be judged.
It creates a National Judiciary to interpret and apply that law,
and a National Executive to see that it is enforced. Thus, in
the intention of the founders of our constitutional system,
every element and authority of government was to be the crea
ture and the servant of law.
In creating a govemment to protect their inherent rights
as freemen, the framers of the Constitution made provision
that the govemment they brought into being should not itself
be able to destroy those rights. In the history of liberty, much
has been said of Magna Charta, wrung from the hands of royal
power by the barons at Runnymede, by which all were pro
tected in their persons and property, and could not be "out
lawed, or exiled, or otherwise destroyed, but by the lawful
judgment of their peers, or the law of the land." But this
concession permitted that anything might be done, if it was by
the will of those who actually made the law, and they were far
less than a majority of the people. The American Colonists
believed — Washington believed — that there were things that
should never be done, even by "the law of the land". There
were, they thought, some rights so individual, so necessary to
moral freedom, so important to preserve, that government
had no right over them; and that was the distinctive note of
our constitutional system.
If time were at my disposal — but I must not weary you —
T should like to show, not only how the Constitution, often im
perfectly copied, has become a model for most of the free
governments of the world, but also how it overcame the an
archy of the time in which it was established, when disconten
ted men were trying to make their selfish interests the law of
the land, ordering State legislatures to abolish their debts, or

18 ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL
give them money by the free use of the printing press; when
the courts were urged to hand down decisions in their interest,
on pain of abolition; when idle or improvident men claimed
the right to share equally in the goods of the more fortunate;
and ambitious demagogues, then, as now and always, aided
and promoted these demands as a means of obtaining public
office. It is an old story, recurrent whenever and wherever demo
cracy has not had the wisdom to set bounds to the rapacity of
men, through the powers of government. • Had it not been for
the high resolution that actuated the founders of constitutional
government in America, our country would have eventually
fallen into the economic condition in which Russia is today.
There were men, at that time, who knew it. Republican gov
ernment, Hamilton said, would have been "disgraced and lost
to mankind forever", and we should have fallen a prey to con
quest and subjection by the intrigues of European powers, ex
tending their eminent domain over us, as they have over
Africa, and Asia, and Oceania, and over every available portion
of the globe, where there was no power of defense.
Much of the drift of recent years has been, distinctly,
away from restraint on the powers of government. More and
more, modern nations have tended to become economic organ
isms, in which there is, on the part of the people, increasing
dependence for the means of living upon the authority, the be
nefactions, and the gratuities of the political State. Material
istic conceptions of the nature and origin of man, and of his
social relations, have added emphasis to this dependence. Men
are attracted by the idea that society owes them a living, and
that it can be obtained through the exercise of political power.
To carry out their task, whole nations have sought to prey upon
other nations, not only forcing upon them the purchasing of
their commodities, which is chiefly an oriental pastime, but
demanding the possession of their resources and tribute to
make those resources available. Internally, these tendencies
take the form of Socialism; externally, the form of Inter
nationalism — a form of Internationalism of a socialistic as
opposed to a juristic type.

ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL 19
The sophisms that underlie these tendencies are as seduc
tive as they are dangerous. They claim a moral character
which they do not really possess, appealing at first to a spirit
of generosity and benevolence, but ending by the imposition of
exorbitant demands, in the name of pretended justice, which
is often so bold as to ridicule mere voluntary personal charity;
and that beautiful grace of the New Testament is represented
as a mere refuge from a wider responsibility.
In truth, the word "responsibility" has almost lost its
primitive and normal meaning. Socialism makes the indus
trious and the provident responsible for the idle and the pro
fligate, and goes to the length of holding the virtuous accoun
table for the existence of crime. By destroying the individual
for the benefit of society, it annihilates the right of the only
units that possess any moral consciousness, or have any moral
quality, — individual men and women — and converts the whole
conception of morality, which is grounded upon free person
ality, or else it has no ground at all, into terms of mechanism
and statistical equalization of material conditions. Carried to
its logical result, it would wholly dry up the foundation of per
sonal initiative, and make every man, and woman and child in
'he community a pensioner of the State, regardless of merit,
service, or capacity. (Applause).
I shall detain you but a moment more. The pivot upon
which this social mechanism revolves is the power of unlimit
ed taxation, a power which the founders of this nation care
fully refused to grant to government. It would take from
those who have and distribute to those who have not, on the
ground that private possession is a wrong done to society, and
that need is the true and only measure of demand.
More than forty years ago, old John Ruskin, one of the
most notable social reformers in his time, had the courage
to say: "There is nothing really more monstrous in any re
corded savagery or absurdity of mankind, than that govern
ments should be able to get money for any folly they choose to
commit, by selling the right of taxing future generations to
the end of time." Today, they not only do this, but they do
not wait for the future generations. (Laughter). They take

20 ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL
what they please, and they spend it as they like. And in this
country, a very few hundred men can do that, regardless of
the obligations they have already incurred and imposed on the
future. And, when by this process a nation has impoverished
itself, it turns to any other nation that has any resources left,
and invites it to join in the orgy of prodigality.
In disturbed world conditions, it is not unnatural to argue
that, if, in a community, every individual is responsible for
the condition of all the rest, every nation is responsible
for the misfortunes of all the others. Misconduct ceases to be a
criterion of judgment. A universal communism tends to re
duce all to the same level, to distribute the wealth and re
sources of the world pro rata, irrespective of effort, capacity,
or desert; and national prudence, like individual thrift, is
brought under condemnation as a mark of selfishness.
Now, national duty, like individual duty, is, of course, a
reality; but duty, whether national or individual, has no other
sound basis than the reciprocity of rights. We can deter
mine our duty in a scientific and reasonable way, only by ask
ing ourselves what we might justly demand from others; and,
in this light, is it not plain that responsibility is not unlimited?
It does not in reality extend beyond the power to control, in
some degree, at least, the conduct of those for whom it is
held that we are responsible. I think it is a defensible maxim,
that our responsibility as a nation is rightly measured by the
limitation of our power over other nations. If they will not
conform to our standards, how can we be held responsible for
their misfortunes? We cannot suffer them to drag us down
to ruin by their folly, their jealousies, or their extravagance.
(Applause) It is in connection with this aspect of national duty that
Washington, in his "Farewell Address", points out the seduc
tive nature of what he calls "foreign influence".
With this, in recent years, we have become familiar in
the form of what we now call "propaganda"; which, in secrecy,
subtlety, and perversity, has been developed into a fine art.
Like ether, it is invisible, and so volatile that an attempt to

I ADDRESS OF HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL 21
confine or imprison it only gives it a wider diffusion; and the
more we absorb of it, the more unconscious we are of its ex
istence, as it gently puts us to sleep and obliterates the use
of our senses. (Applause) And what is most alarming of all
is, that it often emanates from sources that are so respectable
that they never awaken our suspicion.
It was against this peril, more menacing to our national
life, believe me, more menacing to our national life than ad
vancing armies, that Washington wrote: "Against the in
sidious wiles of foreign influence, I conjure you to believe me,
fellow-citizens, the jealousy of a free people ought to be con
stantly awake ; since history and experience prove, that foreign
influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican govern
ment. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else
it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided,
instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one
foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those
whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve
to veil, and even to second, the arts of influence on the other.
Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite
are likely to become suspected and odious; while the tools and
dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to sur
render their interests."
When we seriously inquire — and that is the principal
thing — what will most effiectively safeguard our heri
tage from foes within and enemies without, we ask a ques
tion very difficult to answer. There was a time when I looked
most hopefully to our universities and colleges, but foreign
influences which have crept in during the last few decades
greatly diminish confidence. So many of our teachers, even of
the highest grade, seem almost ashamed of American provin
cialism. They prefer, very much, to follow the foreign ex
amples and to display their learning acquired in foreign uni
versities. At times, there seems to be hope in the fidelity of
a political party, faithful to our best national traditions; but
a personal interest in novelties and class-demands, on the part
of office-seekers, qualifies this expectation. A free press once
promised to be an effective guardian of liberty, and the power

22 ADDRESS OP HON. DAVID JAYNE HILL
of the press is, of course, not to be questioned as a power; but
it is at present controlled, in part, by influences that are wholly
subversive of our constitutional government, and some of this
power is under the direction of foreign intrigue. I conclude,
therefore, that now, as always, the real bulwark of our system
is the intelligence and the virtue of the citizen. If they fail,
the whole edifice will fall in ruins.
Happily, the safety of the nation still rests in their hands.
It was between the trials and perils of the battlefield and the
arduous tasks of the Presidency, that Washington, in retire
ment from public office at Mount Vernon, found the most fruit
ful years of contemplation and reflection; when, as a mere
citizen, he thought of the dangers to the Republic, and how to
avert them, while he watched the ceaseless flow of the shining
river on its never-ending journey to the sea; — the symbol of
our national life that never rests, but hurries ever on to the
fulfillment of its destiny. Out of that solitude and those mo
ments of deep anxiety, came the great constructive thoughts
embodied in our political edifice, — thoughts that still live on in
the nation. It is our privilege to perpetuate them, to apply
them, and to defend them. And to be, with Washington, an
American citizen, is a nobler privilege than to wear a crown.
(Prolonged applause). ^

3 9002 08561 1177

^....