The celebration in New York, in 1889, of the inauguration of Washington was an instructive spectacle.  How much of privilege had been gathered and perpetuated in a century?  Was it not an occasion that emphasized our republican democracy?  Two things were conspicuous.  One was that we did not honor a family, or a dynasty, or a title, but a character; and the other was that we did not exalt any living man, but simply the office of President.  It was a demonstration of the power of the people to create their own royalty, and then to put it aside when they have done with it.  It was difficult to see how greater honors could have been paid to any man than were given to the President when he embarked at Elizabethport and advanced, through a harbor crowded with decorated vessels, to the great city, the wharves and roofs of which were black with human beings —­a holiday city which shook with the tumult of the popular welcome.  Wherever he went he drew the swarms in the streets as the moon draws the tide.  Republican simplicity need not fear comparison with any royal pageant when the President was received at the Metropolitan, and, in a scene of beauty and opulence that might be the flowering of a thousand years instead of a century, stood upon the steps of the “dais” to greet the devoted Centennial Quadrille, which passed before him with the courageous five, ‘Imperator, morituri te salutamus’.  We had done it—­we, the people; that was our royalty.  Nobody had imposed it on us.  It was not even selected out of four hundred.  We had taken one of the common people and set him up there, creating for the moment also a sort of royal family and a court for a background, in a splendor just as imposing for the passing hour as an imperial spectacle.  We like to show that we can do it, and we like to show also that we can undo it.  For at the banquet, where the Elected ate his dinner, not only in the presence of, but with, representatives of all the people of all the States, looked down on by the acknowledged higher power in American life, there sat also with him two men who had lately been in his great position, the centre only a little while ago, as he was at the moment, of every eye in the republic, now only common citizens without a title, without any insignia of rank, able to transmit to posterity no family privilege.  If our hearts swelled with pride that we could create something just as good as royalty, that the republic had as many men of distinguished appearance, as much beauty, and as much brilliance of display as any traditional government, we also felicitated ourselves that we could sweep it all away by a vote and reproduce it with new actors next day.

It must be confessed that it was a people’s affair.  If at any time there was any idea that it could be controlled only by those who represented names honored for a hundred years, or conspicuous by any social privilege, the idea was swamped in popular feeling.  The names that had been elected a hundred years ago did not stay elected unless the present owners were able to distinguish themselves.  There is nothing so to be coveted in a country as the perpetuity of honorable names, and the “centennial” showed that we are rich in those that have been honorably borne, but it also showed that the century has gathered no privilege that can count upon permanence.