The Writings of Carl Schurz/To Franklin H. Head, April 20th, 1889
TO FRANKLIN H. HEAD
New York, April 20, 1889.
I thank you sincerely for your letter of the 13th instant inviting me to meet with you on the anniversary of the first inauguration of President Washington; but I regret to say that my engagements here do not permit a journey to Chicago at the present time.
We cannot worthily commemorate the practical beginning of our Constitutional government without doing homage to the man who was the first and highest illustration of its character. Popular hero-worship is to be commended and encouraged when it consists in the admiring contemplation of conspicuous virtue and wisdom. The memory of George Washington is, and will always remain, one of the most important and precious possessions of the American people.
Inestimable as were his services in the War of Independence, yet history tells us of other great generals whose skill and fortitude turned disaster into victory. But as the head of the civil government, Washington conferred a benefit upon his people which stands unsurpassed if not unequaled in the annals of mankind. It consists in the fact that the first President of the United States was the model President. Whenever the American people wish to remember what the Chief Magistrate and the Government of this Republic should be, and whenever a President in our or any future time wishes to make it clear to his own mind by what rules of political morality he should regulate his conduct, by what motives he should be guided and upon what principles he should act in directing the affairs or in managing the machinery of the Government, they need only look back and they will find it all perfect and complete in the first President's teachings and example. The more clearly those teachings and examples are expressed, the more faithfully they are followed, the purer, the stronger, the more glorious will this Republic become. The more they are lost sight of and departed from, the more threatening will be the danger of its decline in true strength and greatness.