66 FISHER— MYTH-MAKING PROCESS IN [April i8, 



He fastened his methods so firmly upon the country that the learned 

 historians must, in their own dull and lifeless way, conform as far 

 as possible to his ideas or they will be neither read nor tolerated. 



Out of the social, genial, card-playing, fox-hunting Washington, 

 Weems manufactured the sanctimonious wooden image, the Sunday 

 school lay figure, which Washington still remains for most of us, in 

 spite of all the learned efforts of Owen Wister, Senator Lodge and 

 Paul Leicester Ford. Weems was a myth-maker of the highest 

 rank and skill and the greatest practical success. Of the Revolution 

 itself he made a Homeric and Biblical combat of giants, titans and 

 mammoths against the unfathomable corruption and wickedness of 

 about a dozen dragons and fiends calling themselves King and Alin- 

 istry in England. 



He goes back wholly to the whigs and the Annual Register. The 

 people of England, everyone on that blessed island, except the dozen 

 ministerial fiends, were, he assures us, a noble, kindly, gentle race. 

 He knew them well ; he had lived among them when he studied 

 theology ; and they did not make war on the Americans. They would 

 not have thought of such a thing; they disapproved of the war. As 

 for the American colonists, though giants and mammoths when 

 aroused, they were also a gentle people, most loving and obedient to 

 the mother country, anxious to remain with her, had not war been 

 cruelly made upon them. 



And why then was cruel war made upon them? Simply, says 

 Parson Weems, because " the king wanted money for his hungry 

 relations and the ministers stakes for their gaming tables or diamond 

 necklaces for their mistresses." 



There it is in its crudest form, the ministerial explanation of the 

 Revolution, the most popular, short, easy and practical explanation 

 of the great event that could be devised. It reveals nothing about 

 the real issue at stake between the two countries ; nothing about the 

 question of the supremacy of Parliament or the other great principles 

 involved. But it pleased vast numbers of people because as ex- 

 pressed by Weems, they could grasp it instantly ; it appealed to their 

 suspicions of what the effete monarchies across the Atlantic really 

 were. Expressed in different language with a few political and 



