Many years earlier William M.
Evarts had pointed out to Adams the impossibility of uniting New
England behind a New England leader. The trait led to good ends
-- such as admiration of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington --
but the virtue was exacting; for New England standards were
various, scarcely reconcilable with each other, and constantly
multiplying in number, until balance between them threatened to
become impossible. The old ones were quite difficult enough --
State Street and the banks exacted one stamp; the old
Congregational clergy another; Harvard College, poor in votes,
but rich in social influence, a third; the foreign element,
especially the Irish, held aloof, and seldom consented to approve
any one; the new socialist class, rapidly growing, promised to
become more exclusive than the Irish. New power was
disintegrating society, and setting independent centres of force
to work, until money had all it could do to hold the machine
together. No one could represent it faithfully as a whole.
Naturally, Adams's sympathies lay strongly with Lodge, but the
task of appreciation was much more difficult in his case than in
that of his chief friend and scholar, the President. As a type
for study, or a standard for education, Lodge was the more
interesting of the two. Roosevelts are born and never can be
taught; but Lodge was a creature of teaching -- Boston incarnate
-- the child of his local parentage; and while his ambition led
him to be more, the intent, though virtuous, was -- as Adams
admitted in his own case -- restless.
Pages:
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616