PRODUGTION IS INGREASING

ond we are hopelul that in the necrr luture conditions will improve, encbling us to again meet some oI the requirements of our dealer friends.

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'was a physical weakling. Far, far from it. As I used to read about Jefferson when I was a kid, in my mind I often wondered how the thing would have come out if Washington and Jefferson had engaged in a friendly tussle. You have all read and heard of the size, strength, and athletic prowess of Washington, and perhaps little about Jefferson. Yet one of my favorite historians says this about him: t'He was as muscular as a panther, and could walk or run six days and nights together. He could lift from the floor ONE THOUSAND POUNDS." No, friends, that is no misprint. One thousand pounds is the figure, and from a trustworthy source.

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You probably know that he couldn't make a speech. Seldom tried. Stammered. After he wrote the Declaration of Independence, it was debated hotly for three days in the Colonial Congress. A historian says: "Mr. Jefferson opened, not his lips." John Adams handled the foor fight for the Declaration, while Jefferson sat and listened. Adams, who loved him dearly and respected him as much as one human can possibly respect another, called him t'a silent member of Congress." ***

One of the sayings of Jefferson most frequently guoted is: "That country is governed best, which is governed least." He was the most outspoken foe of centralized governmental power in all American history. He hated hidebound men. He said: "If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." He made many significant remarks that you don't hear quoted in Washington these days. One of them was: "If a people had to be without newspapers or without government, they would do better without government." We all know that he was an architectural genius, but may not know that he invented the swivel chair, and originated the waffle; both exccllent contributions to the happiness of man.

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Washington, a poor man, married a rich widow named Martha. Jefferson,,one of the richest men in Virginia by inheritance, married a rich widow,. also named Martha. There was nothing spectacular about the history of George and Martha Washington. But Thomas Jefferson and his Martha leave behind them one of the greatest love stories in American history. Read about it, if you are not familiar with it. She died when he was but 37 years of age. And when she did, he fell as one also dead, and remained so for weeks.

He was the greatest defender of states rights in our history. Like Lincoln he contended that all matters that belonged to the states, should be left with the state governments, and that the national government should attend only to matt'ers that were strictly and completely national. He possessed visiol' of almost supernatural character, with regard to this government. That great genius of government, Alexander Hamilton, contended that a government headed by Washington and containing such key men as Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, and the like, should have no limitation to their tenure of office. But Jefferson, the sage, countered that man is fallible, that power is dangerous, that a great man like Washington dies and someone far different in character and ability takes his place, and the harm has been done. So he urged that those who had the government in their keeping at that time, regardless of their personal merit and lack of dangerous ambition, should limit their orsn power and thus fix a precedent for those who follow. So Washington and Jefferson both refused a third term as President.

We need depend on no historian for Jefferson's opinions on these matters. In his later years he wrote his own autobiography. Here he reviewed the past. He expressed regret that the years a President might serve were not specifically limited in the Constitution. He had observed, he said, "how easily offices, or tenures for life, slide into inheritances." He says on that score:

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"My wish, therefore, was that the President should be elected for seven years, and be ineligible afterwards. This term f thought sufficient to enable him, with the concurrence of the Legislature, to carry through and establish any system of improvement he should propose for the general good. But the practice adopted, I think, is better, allowing his continuance for eight years, with a liability to be dropped at half way of the term, making that a period of probation. .

"The example of four Presidents voluntarily retiring at the end of their eight years, and the progress of public opinion, that the principle is salutary, have given it in practice the force of precedent and usage; insomuch, that, shouJd a President consent to be a candidate for a third election, I trust he would be rejected, on this demonstration of ambitious views."

And that is what Thomas Jefferson wrote in his own hand, on a subject much discussed in the United States today.