Good citizenship

by Grover Cleveland

You will notice that I use the words “holiday observance.” I have not in mind merely the selection or appointment of days which have been thought worthy of celebration. Such an appointment or selection is easy, and very frequently it is the outcome of a perfunctory concession to apparent propriety, or of a transient movement of affectionate sentiment. But I speak of the observance of holidays, and such holidays as not only have a substantial right to exist, but which ought to have a lasting hold upon the sentiment of our people—days which, as often as they recur, should stimulate in the hearts of our countrymen a grateful recognition of what God has done for mankind, and especially for the American nation; days which stir our consciences and sensibilities with promptings to unselfish and unadulterated love of country; days which warm and invigorate our devotion to the supreme ideals which gave life to our institutions and their only protection against death and decay. I speak of holidays which demand observance by our people in spirit and in truth.

The commemoration of the day on which American independence was born has been allowed to lose much of its significance as a reminder of Providential favor and of the inflexible patriotism of the fathers of the republic, and has nearly degenerated into a revel of senseless noise and aimless explosion, leaving in its train far more of mishap and accident than lessons of good citizenship or pride of country. The observance of Thanksgiving Day is kept alive through its annual designation by Federal and State authority. But it is worth our while to inquire whether its original meaning, as a day of united praise and gratitude to God for the blessings bestowed upon us as a people and as individuals, is not smothered in feasting and social indulgence. We, in common with Christian nations everywhere, celebrate Christmas, but how much less as a day commemorating the birth of the Redeemer of mankind than as a day of hilarity and the interchange of gifts.

I will not, without decided protest, be accused of antagonizing or deprecating light-hearted mirth and jollity. On the contrary, I am an earnest advocate of every kind of sane, decent, social enjoyment, and all sorts of recreation. But, nevertheless, I feel that the allowance of an incongruous possession by them of our commemorative days is evidence of a certain condition, and is symptomatic of a popular tendency, which are by no means reassuring.

On the days these words are written, a prominent and widely read newspaper contains a communication in regard to the observance of the birthday of the late President McKinley. Its tone plainly indicates that the patriotic society which has for its primary purpose the promotion of this particular commemoration recognizes the need of a revival of interest in the observance of all other memorial days, and it announces that “its broader object is to instil into the hearts and minds of the people a desire for real, patriotic observance of all of our national days.”

Beyond all doubt, the commemorations of the birth of American heroes and statesmen who have rendered redemptive service to their country in emergencies of peace and war should be rescued from entire neglect and from fitful and dislocated remembrance. And, while it would be more gratifying to be assured that throughout our country there was such a spontaneous appreciation of this need, that in no part of our domain would there be a necessity of urging such commemorations by self-constituted organizations, yet it is comforting to know that, in the midst of prevailing apathy, there are those among us who have determined that the memory of the events and lives we should commemorate shall not be smothered in the dust and smoke of sordidness, nor crushed out by ruthless materialism.

On this day the Union League Club of Chicago should especially rejoice in the consciousness of patriotic accomplishment; and on this day, of all others, every one of its members should regard his membership as a badge of honor. Whatever else the organization may have done, it has justified its existence, and earned the applause of those whose love of country is still unclouded, by the work it has done for the deliverance of Washington’s birthday from neglect or indolent remembrance. I deem it a great privilege to be allowed to participate with the League in a commemoration so exactly designed, not only to remind those of mature years of the duty exacted by their heirship in American free institutions, but to teach children the inestimable value of those institutions, to inspire them to emulation of the virtues in which our nation had its birth, and to lead them to know the nobility of patriotic citizenship. The palpable and immediate good growing out of the commemorations which for twenty years have occurred under the auspices of the League are less impressive than the assurance that, in generations yet to come, the seed thus sown in the hearts of children and youth will bear the fruit of disinterested love of country and saving steadfastness to our national mission.

In furtherance of the high endeavor of your organization, it would have been impossible to select for observance any other civic holiday having as broad and fitting a significance as this. It memorizes the birth of one whose glorious deeds are transcendently above all others recorded in our national annals; and, in memorizing the birth of Washington, it commemorates the incarnation of all the virtues and all the ideals that made our nationality possible, and gave it promise of growth and strength. It is a holiday that belongs exclusively to the American people. All that Washington did was bound up in our national life, and became interwoven with the warp of our national destiny. The battles he fought were fought for American liberty, and the victories he won gave us national independence. His example of unselfish consecration and lofty patriotism made manifest, as in an open book, that those virtues were conditions not more vital to our nation’s beginning than to its development and durability. His faith in God, and the fortitude of his faith, taught those for whom he wrought that the surest strength of nations comes from the support of God’s almighty arm. His universal and unaffected sympathy with those in every sphere of American life, his thorough knowledge of existing American conditions, and his wonderful foresight of conditions yet to be, coupled with his powerful influence in the councils of those who were to make or mar the fate of an infant nation, made him a tremendous factor in the construction and adoption of the constitutional chart by which the course of the newly launched republic could be safely sailed. And it was he who first took the helm, and demonstrated, for the guidance of all who might succeed him, how and in what spirit and intent the responsibilities of our chief magistracy should be discharged.

If your observance of this day were intended to make more secure the immortal fame of Washington, or to add to the strength and beauty of his imperishable monument built upon a nation’s affectionate remembrance, your purpose would be useless. Washington has no need of you. But in every moment, from the time he drew his sword in the cause of American independence to this hour, living or dead, the American people have needed him. It is not important now, nor will it be in all the coming years, to remind our countrymen that Washington has lived, and that his achievements in his country’s service are above all praise. But it is important—and more important now than ever before—that they should clearly apprehend and adequately value the virtues and ideals of which he was the embodiment, and that they should realize how essential to our safety and perpetuity are the consecration and patriotism which he exemplified. The American people need to-day the example and teachings of Washington no less than those who fashioned our nation needed his labors and guidance; and only so far as we commemorate his birth with a sincere recognition of this need can our commemoration be useful to the present generation.

It is, therefore, above all things, absolutely essential to an appropriately commemorative condition of mind that there should be no toleration of even the shade of a thought that what Washington did and said and wrote, in aid of the young American republic have become in the least outworn, or that in these later days of material advance and development they may be merely pleasantly recalled with a sort of affectionate veneration, and with a kind of indulgent and loftily courteous concession of the value of Washington’s example and precepts. These constitute the richest of all our crown jewels; and, if we disregard them or depreciate their value, we shall be no better than “the base Indian who threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe.”

They are full of stimulation to do grand and noble things, and full of lessons enjoining loyal adherence to public duty. But they teach nothing more impressive and nothing more needful by way of recalling our countrymen to a faith which has become somewhat faint and obscured than the necessity to national beneficence and the people’s happiness of the homely, simple, personal virtues that grow and thrive in the hearts of men who, with high intent, illustrate the goodness there is in human nature.