BY MARY PLATT PARMELEE.

S the great world spins down the ringing grooves of change, there are two things which are always and forever happening. Those that are down are trying to get up, and those on top are striving to keep them down. No defeat, however terrible, discourages these tireless forces. Let the explosion be never so violent, soon as the wreckage is cleared away, the forces at the top commence again to smooth and then to crystallize a surface which shall be impenetrable to the forces below.

Just one century ago, the world had a fearful object-lesson in the explosive power of long imprisoned wrong and suffering. For thirty years the seed dropped by Rousseau had been germinating.

Whether the man makes the times, or the times the man, is one of the questions with which the human mind amuses itself. It reminds one of that very wise person who thought it such a singular and fortunate thing that all the great cities happened to be on the banks of large rivers.

He who can capture the unuttered thought of his time, give expression to the vague discontent, definite outline to the aspiration, he is the man of the hour. People have vaguely felt it, have groped for it; but he has grasped and formulated it-and he is Great! It was the times which created Rousseau, not Rousseau the times. He encamped on the banks of a great river. The river did not flow past that point because he stood there! Something within him vibrated in response to the unuttered longing of his time, and he materialized the spirit of the hour into a creed and a formula — Liberty - Equality - Fraternity." To the wretched it meant hope opportunity -fulfilment. To the jaded

66

appetites of the gay and powerful it meant a fascinating abstraction, a charming theme to discuss in elegant boudoirs; and pastoral simplicity became what we should now call a

fad. So, while the one class daintily sipped the exhilarating wine brewed by the Swiss philosopher, and airily discussed its flavor, the other eagerly swallowed it in great, thirsty, copious draughts, which fired the imagination and awoke passionate longings.

Little did Rousseau dream of all that was enfolded within that germ! Nor did the rich and great respect the potential energy existing in the phrase with which they played as with a new toy, and which, thirty years later, became the watchword for the most terrific outburst of human passion the world had ever beheld. And, when all was over-the unbridled force all expended-what was gained? The very word Liberty made men shudder! Gladly they huddled under the strong, sheltering arm of Napoleon. He too had a genius for divining the unuttered thought of his time. He had no passionate longing for his race, but none knew better than he when to encamp upon the banks of a great river! "What this people need is to forget to be amused diverted." The blood and ashes all reminders of the unspeakable horror of the paroxysm, were covered with a glittering mantle of imperialism, which David and others embroidered with their gold and silver threads of art. And the gay French world danced and sang, happy in light

hearted confidence that the lesson had been sufficient. Liberty Equality Fraternity - these ugly words would be heard nevermore.

And Rousseau-poor Rousseau, whose name is ineffaceably written on the title-page of this tragedy—what had he to do with it? He was like one of those theoretic gardeners, who, having studied the properties of seeds in libraries, proceed to plant them, and are then amazed at the forthcoming growth! Was this the sort of plant Rousseau's prophetic imagination had seen?

I think it was the great Frederick who said that if he had a province to punish, he would give it to philosophers to govern. But it is well for us that at the hour when we took up a separate existence among the peoples of the earth, there were philosophers who moulded the thought and guided the pens which were to secure to us our liberties.

But there are philosophers and philosophers. It is one of those loosely fitting words which will cover a Rousseau and a Voltaire as well as a Franklin and a Jefferson. And while Rousseau and the French philosopher liberated a terrible energy, making no provision for its restraint, the men who presided at the birth of this nation were constructing a system of checks and balances of marvellous perfection, through which the popular will must flow. It was the difference between lightning pursuing its own mad course toward its end, and the same force captured for the beneficent uses of civilization.

A problem entirely new to human experience was before them. Thirteen States, with greatest diversity in size, importance, and characteristics, were to be welded into a nation. A plan of federation must be devised which should give equal opportunity to the smallest with the greatest, and which, while preserving the autonomy of each State, should still bring all into a firmly compacted and indivisible whole.

The story of the war of opinions which raged so fiercely over the cradle of our Republic is simply that of a conflict between two everlasting principles, which, so long as the world stands, will be arrayed against each other—the principles of paternalism and individualism. Thomas Jefferson was an uncompromising champion of individualism; the effort of his life was to reduce the powers of the central government to the minimum, and to exalt to the maximum the importance of the individual. In a character less nicely balanced, a mind less philosophical, and a heart less simply intent upon the highest good of his country, so strong a tendency might have been dangerous. But Jefferson loved his country more than his theory. He was not a fanatic or an enthusiast, but a man with deep convictions and an unbending purpose.

He commenced life as a loyal subject of Great Britain, but on the very threshold of his career as a lawyer, and while still only a youth, was caught up by the great wave of popular indignation at the wrongs inflicted by the mother country, and from that time was a champion of the rights of America, a leader in her councils, and impressed himself as did no other

man upon the structure of her government and the spirit informing her institutions, which became, if Emerson's definition be true, the "lengthened shadow" of Jefferson.

He had a nature endowed with splendid virtues and a capacious intellect, a mind which was not a storehouse but a laboratory. It assimilated all the facts of human experience and drew from them a political philosophy which was the mainspring of his action, and the endeavor of his life to see embodied in American institutions. His creed was simple. He believed in the People. He had an abiding faith in the collective wisdom of Humanity. He believed that the ideal government should be framed, not so much to restrain the popular will as to express it; not to obstruct, but to execute it. The People were sovereign; the government was their servant.

Few men have addressed themselves to a task of such magnitude, or brought to it qualities so ample and varied. With a splendid grasp of principles he combined a genius for details which rendered him peculiarly fitted to aid in the formative period of the nation.

Matchless as a husband, a father, and a friend, he was besides a scholar, a musician, a writer, an inventor, a man of science, a philosopher; but above and beyond all else he was a patriot. And into this great swelling stream of patriotism he poured all other gifts. All that he was and had he gave with unsparing hand. In his mind were the germs of art, science, and philosophy, which with opportunity would have blossomed into a splendid fruitage. But deaf to all these allurements, he devoted fifty years of life to public service with such absolute self-surrender, with private interests so entirely subordinated to public ones, that he saw his own ample fortune waste away from neglect, and died a bankrupt.

Few biographies leave on the mind an impression of nobler character than that of Thomas Jefferson, and yet there has probably never been a man who has excited such antagonisms and been so detested and execrated by good men as he.

I myself was brought up in a family where the traditions were all anti-Jeffersonian. And as I write these eulogistic words I am somewhat in dread lest my honored grandfather

shall arise in indignation and rebuke me. Indeed, until quite recently I believed that Jefferson was only another name for incarnate evil; that he was not only guilty of the enormity of having fathered the Democratic party, but a man who was blasphemous, vulgar, and in fact quite unfit for the society of self-respecting people. If you will read William Cullen Bryant's vituperative description of him in his first poem, "The Embargo," you will understand the sort of Jeffersonian echoes which are still heard in many households throughout the land. But no Roman was sterner in virtue, no Spartan more severe in ideas of truth and justice. His principles were exalted and philosophically true, and his fidelity to them was absolute. In the use of his great gifts, never did he seem impelled by small motives or by personal ambitions.

During six terrible years (between 1792 and 1798) he was resident minister at Paris. Poor France was striving to follow in America's footsteps on the path to liberty. To be what we were, think and act as we did, was her aim and ideal.

Fancy Jefferson's amazement and grief when he returned to America after this long absence, and upon taking his place in Washington's cabinet at New York, at finding himself in an atmosphere of openly avowed monarchical sentiment! Republicanism unfashionable! A strong reaction toward

aristocratic habits and ideals. An exclusive social surface forming in New York and elsewhere which lacked only titles to render it indistinguishable from a foreign noblesse. Do we realize how narrow was the escape made by the young Republic at this time? And do we realize who it was who stood and fought out that battle almost single-handed for the American idea?

Hamilton openly declaring that a limited monarchy was the best form of government, and the one we should without doubt adopt after the present experiment had failed as it must. John Adams sending forth philosophical diatribes upon the benefits of a landed and privileged aristocracy, and of the hereditary principle. Even Washington investing his office with a sort of regal state, and his person with some of the divinity which doth hedge a king.