"I wonder," I said to my companion, "if anybody ever gets up and goes
when that man calls out the trains."
"I don't believe so," he replied. "I don't think he calls trains for any
such purpose. He only warns people so they will expect to hear the
train, and not be frightened when it goes through."
* * * * *
Thomas Jefferson is most widely remembered, I suppose, as the author of
the Declaration of Independence, the third President, the purchaser of
Louisiana, and the unfortunate individual upon whom the Democratic party
casts the blame for its existence, precisely as the Republican party
blames itself on Washington and Lincoln--although the lamentable state
into which both parties have fallen is actually the fault of living men.
It is significant, however, that of this trio of Jeffersonian items,
Jefferson himself selected but one to be included in the inscription
which he wrote for his tombstone--a modest obelisk on the grounds at
Monticello. The inscription mentions but three of his achievements: the
authorship of the Declaration, that of the Virginia statute for
religious freedom, and the fact that he was "Father of the University of
Virginia."
Regardless of other accomplishments, the man who built the university
and the house at Monticello was great.
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