Page:Harris Dickson--The unpopular history of the United States.djvu/63

 passed the buck to George, appointing George Military Dictator. It is not strength, but weakness, which creates dictators over a republic. Here was Washington, preaching the equal rights of all men, yet by his solitary power raising armies and paying them, ruling millions of free men who struggled to attain an ideal of constitutional liberty. Mighty bad precedent, wasn’t it, my son? But it was up to somebody to do something, and Congress couldn’t.

They got their business in such a jam, before making Washington dictator, that the Commander-in-Chief could not even secure the promotion of an officer serving under him, an officer of known ability and skill. It was a marvel that his army muddled along at all. The Washington monument ought to be twice as high.

This year of ’78 brought a very significant factor to our shores, far more significant than anybody dreamed of at the time. A stranger came, the Prussian Baron Steuben, ex-officer of Frederick the Great. Steuben brought a