From Farm House to the White House - 912 Freedom Library

Farm House to the White House, by William M. Thayer 198
"Never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great and to place him in the same
constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance."
During his presidency he made a tour through the Southern States. His arrangement for the same furnishes a
remarkable illustration of the order and punctuality for which he was known from boyhood. Thinking that the
heads of the several State departments might have occasion to write to him, he wrote out his route thus:
"I shall be, on the eighth of April, at Fredericksburg; the eleventh, at Richmond; the fourteenth, at Petersburg;
the sixteenth, at Halifax; the eighteenth, at Tarborough; the twentieth, at Newtown;" and thus on to the end, a
journey of nineteen hundred miles.
Custis says: "His punctuality on that long journey astonished every one. Scarcely would the artillery-men
unlimber the cannon when the order would be given, 'Light your matches; the white chariot is in full view!'"
Washington rode in a white chariot.
His industry, which had become proverbial, enabled him to perform a great amount of work. General Henry
Lee once said to him:
"Mr. President, we are amazed at the amount of work you are able to accomplish."
"I rise at four o'clock, sir, and a great deal of the work I perform is done while others are asleep," was
Washington's reply.
At the same time his thoroughness and method appeared in everything. Mr. Sparks says:
"During his presidency it was likewise his custom to subject the treasury reports and accompanying
documents to the process of tutelar condensation, with a vast expenditure of labor and patience."
Another biographer says:
"His accounts, while engaged in the service of his country, were so accurately kept, that to this hour they are
an example held up before the nations."
In all these things the reader must note that "the boy is father of the man."
Under his administration there was no demand, as now, for "civil service reform." His nearest relative and
best friend enjoyed no advantage over others for position. Real qualifications and experience for office he
required. Alluding to the severity with which he treated the idea of giving friends and favorites position, a
public man remarked:
"It is unfortunate to be a Virginian."
At the close of his long service, he wrote:
"In every nomination to office, I have endeavored, as far as my own knowledge extended, or information
could be obtained, to make fitness of character my primary object."
At one time two applicants for an important office presented their appeals, through friends. One of them was
an intimate friend of the president, often at his table. The other was a political enemy, though a man of
experience. No one really expected that his political enemy would be appointed, but he was.
"Your appointment was unjust," a person dared to say to Washington.