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George Washington 
 
 An address by 
 
 CHAS. EUGENE CLARK 
 
 Vice-President of the Peoples Savings Bank and Trust 
 Company of Covington, Kentucky 
 
George Washington 
 
 An address by 
 
 CHAS. EUGENE CLARK 
 
 Vice-President of the Peoples Savings Bank and Trust 
 Company of Covington, Kentucky 
 
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 AN ADDRESS BY CHAS. EUGENE CLARK, 
 
 Vice-President of the Peoples Savings 'Bank and Trust Company 
 
 of Covington, Kentucky. 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON, our first President, was 
 the great grandson of John Washington, an English 
 gentleman of culture, who migrated to Westmore- 
 land County, Virginia, in the year 1662, and who became a 
 man of large figure in the colony of Virginia, following the 
 life of a planter, and Who became a member of the House 
 of Burgesses of the colony in 1666, and who, through his 
 industry, acquired large landed possessions, servants, cattle 
 and other wealth of the day. 
 
 The great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch 
 married Ann Pope, by whom he had three children, Law- 
 rence, John and Ann Washington. Lawrence married 
 Mildred Warner, and to which union was born John, Augus- 
 tine, also known as Austin, and Mildred Washington. 
 
 Austin intermarried with the beautiful Mary Ball, the 
 cultured daughter of a wealthy planter. The couple had six 
 children, among whom was the subject of this address, 
 George Washington, who was born at Bridge's Creek in 
 Westmoreland County, February 22nd, 1732. 
 
 Three years later the home of his parents was burned, 
 and they removed to Stafford on the north bank of the 
 Rappahannock, opposite the town of Frederickstown, where 
 Austin Washington died in the year 1743, leaving a large 
 landed estate, the greater portion of which he devised to his 
 son Lawrence, a son by a former marriage, and who received 
 the place on Hunting Creek and which is now known as 
 Mt. Vernon, and to his son George he gave the place on the 
 Rappahannock. 
 
 Austin's widow, with her small children, all of tender 
 years, were left in ordinary circumstances. She purchased 
 a small one-story house of three rooms in Frederickburg to 
 
 3 
 
which she brought her Httle family, and there reared them to 
 the best of her abihty in humble surroundings, while per- 
 sonally directing in the management and farming with the 
 assistance of her servants the plantation across the Rappa- 
 hannock. 
 
 George Washington, our future president, had for many 
 years few enjoyments that were not common to other boys 
 of the time. His schooling facilities were very limited, he 
 attending a field school, as it was then known, conducted 
 by a church sexton. 
 
 At a later period he was removed to the home of his 
 half-brother Lawrence at Mt. Vernon, where he had the 
 opportunity of meeting people of greater quality, dignity 
 and breeding than had been his wont at Fredericksburg. 
 
 Among the company whom he was privileged to meet in 
 his new home none influenced him more than Lord Fairfax 
 and the noble Lord's cousin, both of whom took a great 
 interest in Washington, now largely grown to the estate of 
 young manhood, he being now sixteen years of age, athletic, 
 tall and straight, some six feet in stature, of a light com- 
 plexion with brown hair and marvelous blue eyes. 
 
 The young Washington not only hunted at will over the 
 plantation at Mt. Vernon, but also met with Lord Fairfax in 
 the chase, a sport then much in vogue, and this intimacy 
 ripened into a warm friendship, and later led to the young 
 man's employment as private surveyor to his lordship's 
 lands, lying in the wilds of the then sparsely settled country 
 on the headwaters of the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio 
 rivers. 
 
 This employment having been undertaken amidst great 
 danger, was creditably performed in the face of murderous 
 Indians, hostile Frenchmen and the absence of all human 
 and domestic comforts. His roof was the sky and bearskins 
 and leaves furnished his bed, and great fatigue was ever 
 encountered as they toiled over the rugged country. This 
 employment secured for him the position of public surveyor 
 of the colony of Virginia. 
 
 4 
 
These surveying campaigns which he now undertook 
 and prosecuted with great activity enured him to hardships. 
 They taught him the ways of the woods and that of its wild 
 inhabitants. Through them he learned the course of the 
 streams and where lie the best routes of travel through a 
 rugged and unbroken wilderness. 
 
 In these expeditions he learned the virtue of self-reliance 
 and was trained for the many glorious military services 
 which he later rendered his country, and which resulted 
 after many reverses in a great triumph of arms at the battles 
 of the Meadows and Ft. Necessity. 
 
 He later took Ft. Duquesne, after the English com- 
 mander, General Braddock, had failed to storm it, and broke 
 the power of the French and Indians, and Ft. Duquesne 
 became Ft. Pitt, now known as Pittsburgh of our own day, 
 which opened the way to the Ohio and the great West, for 
 English colonists. 
 
 His brilliant victories on the headwaters of these rivers 
 was of great significance and opened the way for the writing 
 of the chapter of the development of the great West, which 
 then began at the slopes of the Alleghenies and extended 
 westward to the Mississippi and onward across the bound- 
 less prairies to the Rockies. 
 
 At this time that great stretch of country was absolutely 
 unknown. Its only inhabitants were the fierce Redskins, 
 who roamed its limitless forests in quest of game, which 
 everywhere abounded. Today it is the very heart of our 
 common country, with its teeming millions of energetic 
 people and with boundless resources and wealth. But its 
 future was forecast by the brilliant victory of George 
 Washington, as he climbed the mountains and fought and 
 conquered the hostile French and Indians, who were then its 
 masters. 
 
 These brilliant campaigns, with their several successes 
 and reverses, taught the then valiant young soldier the art of 
 war and developed in him those characteristics which enabled 
 him at a later day, as Commander-in-Chief of the forces of 
 
 5 
 
the revolted colonies, to successfully conduct the mighty 
 campaign waged through the years of the war of the Revolu- 
 tion against a well organized army, the very flower of Eng- 
 land's troops, and which resulted in our independence. 
 
 His resourcefulness and prowess as exhibited on many 
 a battlefield with the French and Indians became a matter 
 of common knowledge throughout the colonies, and espe- 
 cially in that of Virginia, and inspired the colonial soldiers 
 to enlist under his banners and fight with great bravery, 
 and helped win many a hard-fought battle. 
 
 In these French and Indian campaigns, which the colo- 
 nists had been fighting for more than a hundred years, were 
 foreshadowed the suflFerings of Valley Forge and the im- 
 mortal victory of Yorktown, and there was developed the 
 stratagem of this wary and indominable soldier who was to 
 be the savior of his country in its struggle for a life of 
 independence. 
 
 George Washington was ever modest, vigilant, kind and 
 valiant, and always had a due regard to the lives of his men. 
 He never wantonly sacrificed them, but bided his time and 
 opportunity. 
 
 He often chafed under the intollerance and ignorance of 
 the British officers and troops in his earlier campaigns waged 
 for the British crown and was much chagrined at the dis- 
 courteous treatment which he in common with his fellow 
 Virginians suffered at their hands and especially at that 
 of General Braddock's. 
 
 As a citizen and military commander his character was 
 such and his fame so great and his integrity and leadership 
 so well known that he was unanimously chosen as Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the colonial forces when the war for 
 independence began. 
 
 His conduct in that war, his battles and the sufferings of 
 his troops and the hardship endured by him have become 
 matters of common knowledge, and have been interwoven 
 in the very warp and woof of our history, and have become 
 an inspiration to our people, one of its priceless heritages. 
 
 6 
 
His fame became world-wide, and after one of his most 
 brilliant maneuvers he received a message from Frederick 
 the Great of Prussia, who honored him by the greeting, 
 "from the oldest General in the world to the Greatest," as 
 he commended the brilliant campaigns and strategy of 
 our hero. 
 
 Washington will be ever remembered and honored for 
 the rebuke which he administered to the generals and those 
 malcontents of the army who were mutinying over the want 
 of their pay. His words breathed the spirit of freedom and 
 accomplished the desired effect. From that time forward, 
 the highest spirit of patriotism prevailed throughout the 
 army, and one and all willingly bore every hardship. 
 
 His refusal of the offer of a crown and his declination 
 which was a stinging rebuke on this occasion, is an undying 
 testimony to his patriotism as a typical American. To him 
 all honor, for he was a royal example of fortitude, energy 
 and patriotism. 
 
 He became the unanimous choice of the nation for the 
 Presidency upon the termination of the war for independ- 
 ence. His hesitancy and diffidence in the acceptance of 
 this high office did him great honor, for although pre- 
 eminent among the men of his time, he considered that he 
 was but one among many loyal patriots who had covered 
 themselves with greatest glory, and to whom we as a people 
 owe undying honor. 
 
 For it was in this period of our history when our fore- 
 fathers, struggling against great odds, established the 
 nobility, grandeur, patience, breadth, depth and the resource- 
 fulness of American character and limned upon the heavens 
 the heights of American patriotism, which has ever actuated 
 our people and been its greatest inspiration as we have 
 wrought and vizualized in the century of our accomplish- 
 ment and upon which we have builded our character and 
 progress. 
 
 Washington displayed great tact in the selection of his 
 cabinet and in dealing with the multifarious interests of the 
 
 7 
 
new republic, and succeeded on the whole in giving general 
 satisfaction during his terms of office in the exalted station 
 to which he had been chosen. 
 
 Yet notwithstanding his unblemished character, patriot- 
 ism and great work he did not escape that calumny that is 
 ever heaped upon those occupying the first stations in life 
 and who endeavor to worthily serve their fellowmen and 
 country. He, like all other great leaders, who sit in the sun 
 of accomplishment, became shining targets for the dis- 
 affected, the en\dous and the unpatriotic. Such is ever one 
 of the burdens and inheritances of greatness. 
 
 Through it all our first president was unshaken in his 
 fidelity to the constitution and the ideals and the people 
 whom he served, and his reputation was untarnished, for 
 the shafts of envy, by reason of its noble texture, were 
 turned aside, just as the mud daubs fall off the polished 
 marble. He earnestly endeavored to enforce the laws, 
 maintain order, fulfill his oath of office and lead the republic 
 to greater national life. 
 
 He displayed great tact and good sense in supporting the 
 policies of Alexander Hamilton against great opposition and 
 persuasion to the contrary. He recognized the brilliancy of 
 Hamilton and the soundness of his theories and that they 
 underlied the future greatness of our country. 
 
 Washington exercised wisdom and statesmanship of a 
 high order in observing a strict neutrality in the war that was 
 then being waged between England and France during his 
 administration. He realized that should we attempt to take 
 sides that we would become like grain between the millstones 
 and be ground to powder. He recognized that the country 
 must have a breathing spell in which it could recuperate. 
 
 He justly resented the conduct of the French Minister 
 Genet by ordering him to cease interfering in his endeavor 
 to embroil our country in this war and in demanding of the 
 French Government his recall and enforcing the dignity of 
 our Government and our rights as a nation. 
 
 He brought to the administration of the country the 
 
sagacity of a sage, the military knowledge of a great chief- 
 tain, and the devotion of a hero, all of which have won for 
 him the highest commendation of his countrymen, and have 
 ever endeared him to all humanity. 
 
 Among all our great men, with the exception of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, who arose in our country at a later day, 
 Washington became the most celebrated, and is looked 
 upon as the Father of his Country, as Abraham Lincoln 
 become in its second greatest crisis its savior. 
 
 Under the wisdom of Washington and his associates, all 
 of whom were men of great brilliancy, it can safely be said, 
 "that our constitution sprang from a condition bordering on 
 anarchy" and was administered by him as president for the 
 well being of society and established this republic upon a 
 firm base and sent it forward in its course to serve mankind. 
 
 It was in the midst of such conditions so burdened and 
 agitated and so largely disturbed by distractions and theories 
 of government, that Washington, the very foremost citizen 
 and soldier of his time, a man of noble mien, yet of a modest 
 and retiring disposition, with his high sense of duty and 
 truth, was elevated to our first office and undertook to 
 administer the constitution of the then newly-born republic 
 for the common welfare. 
 
 How well he governed, let the mighty republic, with its 
 now boundless power, with its hundred million in habitants, 
 who, notwithstanding the fact that though near seven score 
 years have passed since it gained its birthright, is but looking 
 forward on the horizon of its morning, and which has been 
 an inspiration for the down-trodden of the world, since we 
 established our freedom. 
 
 As president he was wise, calm, just and dignified, free 
 of all rancor and bitter partisanship. In fact, was a typical 
 leader and the right man for the right place. It may be 
 truthfully said that he was God-sent and God-given, as he 
 came into the world and the affairs of our country in one 
 of the greatest crises of the existence of our people and 
 wrought manfully for our freedom. 
 
He was a man of large experience, of caution and yet of 
 great action. He did nothing which he did not conceive to 
 be both just and reasonable. With a character as lofty as 
 his mind, he ever endeavored to faithfully serve his country, 
 and labored to strengthen the republic in all of its proper 
 authority. He conceived that a new nation had been born 
 and that it must be equipped with all the powers to ensure its 
 rights and dignities, and to enforce its will and make for its 
 well being and perpetuity. 
 
 He was ever a warm friend of humanity, liberty and 
 science. Under his administration of governmental affairs 
 the success of the nation, the times considered, was unsur- 
 passed. Through his wise administration confidence and 
 activity were restored in the business affairs of the people, 
 and order in government, agriculture and commerce flour- 
 ished, credit rose rapidly and society prospered under a sense 
 of security, feeling and believing that it was both free and 
 well-governed. 
 
 Good government and a firm administration ever make 
 for progression. They are the foundation stones upon which 
 are built a nation's greatness, and give it honorable standing 
 in the world, and which make for the happiness of its people, 
 and redound to its glory. 
 
 Washington had the power to divine amidst the con- 
 fusion of rival interests and the cries of factional strife, the 
 true aims, hopes and vital needs of the new-born republic 
 and its people, and nothing could swerve him from the 
 course which was straight ahead, and which has had such 
 happy sequences for our people. 
 
 He was like an able pilot, who carries his boat through 
 the stress of storm and weather to calmness and safety, 
 saving and serving the interests committed to his care and 
 charge. 
 
 The power to conceive and understand, the faith to 
 believe in, and the unselfish courage to live for and serve 
 the best interests of his country, were the central factors and 
 great characteristics of Washington's life. They were the 
 
 10 
 
heart and soul of his Americanism and counted for the 
 grandeur of our people, the security and safety of our 
 republic. 
 
 He taught that true Americanism was a belief in the 
 inalienable rights of man to life, liberty and the pursuit of 
 happiness, and that they were God-given. He realized that 
 our liberty and happiness were as natural and essential to the 
 well being of mankind as the beauty of the sunlight and the 
 freedom of the winds and the mobility of the waters that 
 coursed from our mountains to the sea. That all was God- 
 given and inalienable. 
 
 He fundamentally believed that taxation without repre- 
 sentation is t}'ranny, and that all just government can and 
 must rest on the consent of the governed, and that a free 
 people should choose its own rulers, if it would perpetuate 
 its existence. 
 
 Professor Van Dyke has truthfully said, "that such is 
 true Americanism, ideals embodying themselves in the life 
 of a people, a creed heated white-hot in the furnace of con- 
 viction, and hammered into shape on the anvil of life." 
 
 And it was the subordination of self, to that ideal, that 
 creed which gave eminence and glory to Washington, Frank- 
 lin, Adams, Henry, Hamilton and all that brilliant galaxy of 
 patriots who stood with him and them and made for and 
 carved out our country's future history and greatness. 
 
 Washington was a great figure, in his day and genera- 
 tion, and was pre-eminent among the patriots with whom 
 he lived and labored, "but only so in so far as a mountain 
 peak extends farthest heavenward from the center of a 
 mighty mountain range," or as a towering tree overtops its 
 gigantic fellows in the forest. "He was buttressed among 
 patriots" who were veritable giants in the cause of life, 
 liberty and happiness under a free government which had 
 come to serve and save mankind. 
 
 The Americanism of Washington and those brilliant men 
 who stood with him shoulder to shoulder in the struggle for 
 freedom and those countless patriots who fought for our 
 
 11 
 
independence will never die. So long as the winds blow 
 freely over our limitless prairies and our great mountain 
 ranges lift their mighty crests into the blue of heaven, and 
 our mighty rivers flow in majesty and beauty to the sea, the 
 noble example and the valiant deeds of these men of the 
 revolution will ever accentuate the patriotism of our people 
 and nerve them to strive in the cause of freedom and work 
 for the advancement of mankind. 
 
 At the end of his second term of office Washington 
 retired to the privacy of his plantation home at Mt. Vernon, 
 carrying with him the best wishes and plaudits of his coun- 
 trymen, after having previously absolutely refused to con- 
 sider a further re-election to the presidency. This refusal 
 has set a precedent which has been faithfully observed by all 
 of his successors in this exalted ofhce to the present day. 
 
 He died at Mt. Vernon December 14th, 1799, after a 
 brief illness, where he had led a noble, respected life, one 
 filled with the beauty, joy and grandeur of living, and he has 
 left us an example of noble, patient manhood, of a brilliant 
 and almost unexampled patriotism. 
 
 In his life he has said to have done the two greatest 
 things which in politics man can have the privilege of doing, 
 in that he maintained by peace that independence of his 
 country which he had acquired by war, for he founded free 
 government in the name of the principles of order by 
 re-establishing their sway, and it is said that when he 
 retired from public life both tasks were accomplished and 
 he could enjoy the results along with all the rest of his 
 fellowmen. 
 
 In such a high enterprise we are told that what they have 
 cost matters but Httle, for the sweat of such toil is dried at 
 once on the brow where God places such laurels, and that 
 very often men die under the burdens they carry before the 
 day of recompense arrives, but Washington lived to receive 
 it. He deserved and enjoyed both success and repose and 
 gained immortality. 
 
 Of all great men he was acclaimed the most virtuous and 
 the most fortunate. In this world God has no higher favors 
 
 12 
 
to bestow. May our country ever be blessed with men of the 
 caUber of Washington and Lincoln, for we then may be 
 assured that our destinies are in good hands and our future 
 assured. 
 
 As we continue to exist as a people may God in His 
 unbounded wisdom and mercy ever continue to send to us 
 such leaders, that we may serve him and work out a noble 
 destiny. Our future lies in the asserting of an American 
 policy, one that will be friendly but independent. We must 
 be ever courteous but ever firm, and if we would exist as a 
 free people and continue to enjoy our grand inheritance 
 carved for us by Washington and saved to us by Lincoln, we 
 must be ever ready and ever prepared to defend our rights 
 and assert our interests as we try to be just toward ourselves, 
 our fellowmen and Heaven. 
 
 We can maintain our position and insure peace only by 
 being thoroughly prepared for war. 
 
 "Let us be just and fear not. Let all our acts and aims 
 be our God's, our Country's and Truth's." 
 
 13 
 
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