VINTAGE PHOTOGRAVURE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE GALLERY

Jefferson

THOMAS JEFFERSON still lives.

The honors heaped upon him by the people were but their gifts to their benefactor, the insignia of his labors, his burdens and his cares. How paltry seems that long catalogue of official designations compared with what he was himself--a man God-gifted and God-armed for the battle of right against wrong compared to what he did for the people, his gifts to them. There is not a heart that loves humanity and thrills with noble rage for right and truth and justice; there is not a people on earth who are weary and heavy laden under the burden of oppression; there is not a chancellor who loves equity; there is not a devotee who bows his head in free worship to his Maker; there is not an ingenuous

student by the midnight lamp; there is not a toiler by land or sea; yea, there is not an astronomer who reads the stars, nor an humble farmer in his cabin, nor a freeman anywhere who treads the earth with the spirit of the free who does not bless God that Thomas Jefferson lived, and that his life goes marching on!

What did Jefferson do for the people? Rather, what did he not do? He was one of them.

He loved them, trusted them, guided them; he cheered them, he comforted them, he led them.

So much for generalities.

It is true, as said by the Cicero of Massachusetts, Edward Everett, that there rests on Thomas Jefferson the imperishable renown of having framed the Declaration of Independence.

But had he never penned a syllable of it he would be immortal. It is true he raised his hand against the Established Church, threw himself against the great landed proprietors and powerful party leaders and brought forth the first statute of religious freedom that adorned the history of the world. Imperishable renown with that, but without it he would have been immortal.

It is true he negotiated the purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon, gaining a kingdom for a song, securing the free navigation of the Mississippi to the countless multitudes who now throng its bank and adding the Great West and Southwest to the Union the greatest territory ever won by man without a drop of blood. But without all this he would have been immortal.

He will be remembered as the most accomplished man America has ever produced.

Jefferson's mind was practical and of the kind which turns things to account.

He loved the mathematics, and no superstition could ever lead him from the rock-bed notion that two and two make four, world without end.

He was as precise in detail as he was broad and accurate in generalization. His mind was like an elephant's trunk in that it could pick up a

When he was President he went regularly to market, and in his journal he kept a record of the date of the appearance of spring truits and vegetables.

The stately dome of the University of Virginia and the classic lines of the mansion at Monticello bespeak the classic mind that reproduced them.

He founded the Patent Office of the United States, but do you know that he was himself an inventor? While in France, as minister, he wrote his admirable notes on Virginia, and with the Revolution fermenting about him, he invented a hillside plow which won him a medal from the "Royal Agricultural Society.' " of the Seine.

He was also the inventor of the modern revolving office chair. The rice grown in the Southern States today is from grain

which Jefferson hid in his pockets while in Italy, and distributed ten grains at a time to the farmers on his return. His influence is felt to-day when any important questions are up for discussion. He was a child of nature, this glorious Jefferson, and with all his wisdom and all his culture he was on the people's side of all questions. An honest son of Mother Earth; a man with a man's faults, but no Pharisee. noble and God-like virtues. He had fewer faults and lesser faults than most, and He was strong in all courage; yea, in civic courage, the rarest of all forms of bravery.

This Jefferson had the quiet, patient, daring, superb courage that looks public opinion in the eye, and dares confront and affront it and not flinch the encounter.

Independence they said " Rebel.

When he stood for religious freedom they cried "

When he stood for justice they said "Communist." Infidel."

When monarchy and concentrated power they said "Demagogue."

When he aroused the people against him gladly. They knew their ears, and with one accord they said,

But the common people heard "All Hail, Our Friend."

Dying without a penny, his very books, his land, his home were sold away from his inheritors, and fighting successfully, every battle but his own, he crowned the people as victor in every battle that he won. If it is right that a man sues for, and if he does not believe that one man is born bridled and saddled, and the other booted and spurred- let him pluck a flower from this good man's life and wear it in his soul forever.

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DECLARATION

INDEPENDENCE