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Page 18 · column 4 of 4 · from the scan, no model involved
am considered the father of this country, with towns, states, and even the federal town named after me. In actuality, I never fathered any offspring, but I was always a sort of father to other people’s children — Martha's by her first husband, and the many brave young soldiers and patriots, I commanded and nurtured.
I am not too surprised by what you call technology — Ben Franklin told us electricity would one day work for mankind — except for the advances in transportation and communication. I expected great things from this country. I worked hard to improve transportation, particularly the navigation of the Potomac River and hoped that ships would become faster and faster.
But I never dreamed that machines would carry people through the air like birds. Today you get on a flying machine with more pews than a church and sail in comfortable armchairs from Virginia to the European capitals in a matter of hours.
Your television and telephones seem like magic. You now know instantly who is elected President, instead of waiting days or weeks for members of the Electoral College to return home with the results. There is daily information about wars in far off countries with names I can't pronounce.
Your Town of Washington was, as you say, the first of them all. It was the first for me too, my first career, and I look back to it with affection. But for most of my life and employment I was a soldier, farmer, and politician. And that is another story.
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