The secret of his success

LITTLE ROCK — SOMEWHERE in his concise, simple, and complete masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald describes personality as “an unbroken series of successful gestures . . .”

We have come a long way since a writer could offer so clear and sharp a definition of the significant life. Now the emphasis is not on the gesture but on the unmediated feeling, the uninhibited impulse, and the intimate revelation, preferably of a sexual nature. These are said to be authentic, while the gesture is suspect as insincere-“only a gesture.”

In today’s post-cultural America, we are into body-sculpting rather than mind-forming or soul-shaping. We study manners, if at all, not to grasp their essence-consideration for others-but as another of the upwardly mobile arts. Who knows, they might come in handy some day, like a law degree.

Washington understood that the gesture could be not only ornamental but formative. An ambitious young man, he consciously set out to shape himself, for he was ambitious not only for the usual things the young are ambitious for-wealth, power, status!-but for things beyond wealth, power and status. Things like character, honor, virtue, and the incomparable satisfaction of duty done.

This young colonial officer was ambitious, all right, but not only for himself. He was ambitious for his country. Indeed, the two would become inseparable. Which may be why, in the end, he shaped not only his own character but his nation’s. And he did it so well that there now seems little distinctive about him. He’s just part of the American background, like the Washington Monument or the face on the dollar bill.

How did he stamp us with his image? In the beginning, as a young apprentice surveyor out in the wilderness that was then most of Virginia, George Washington laboriously copied out each and all one hundred and ten Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour, in Company and Conversation. A popular manual of etiquette, it had been written in 1595, translated from the French. This new species, the American, was not out to destroy the past, but refine it, perpetuating what had been of use and beauty and dignity.

More impressive than the young Washington’s studying all these rules-no doubt many young men did-was his following them the rest of his life. One precept especially would serve him and his country well: “Every action done in public ought to be done with some sign of respect for those that are present.” And as he would respect others, Washington would insist that others respect him, and his a-borning nation.

WASHINGTON seems to have understood from the first how character is formed, not just a man’s but a nation’s: through an unbroken series of successful gestures. The first president of the American republic would also prove its most formal. He would insist on observing every detail of protocol. And for good reason. Here he was, head of this unprecedented experiment that was both republic and empire, an undeveloped coastal strip of a country, a wilderness that fancied itself a new Athens and Rome. If he did not establish its traditions, it might have none. So he set out to do just that.

Washington understood that manners make not only the man but the republic. In his vision of democracy, citizens would have not only the freedom but the grace of aristocrats. He would not lower anyone but raise all. And he would become an exemplary figure for future generations. Seldom have the standards of a nation been so consciously molded in the image of its founding father.

It is said that nothing so disorganizes an army as victory. The same observation might be applied to nations. In war or peace, victory or defeat, George Washington would become the embodiment of his country’s stability in a roiling world, the one leader to whom all could turn whenever storms gathered, or just to defeat inertia and restore impetus. He gave the country movement without chaos, direction without dictation.

Washington would spend his life first acquiring, then honing, and always practicing what may be the single quality most necessary for a great leader: the ability to inspire trust in others. He won that trust through an unbroken series of successful gestures.

Washington did not break with the past so much as build a future. No one with any understanding ever thought of George Washington as a rebel; he was a reluctant revolutionary. He did not lead an uprising but a war of independence. He did not call the constitutional convention to overthrow the inadequate Articles of Confederation,but to transform them into a constitution. That constitution would be described by an English statesman of a later generation, William Ewart Gladstone, as “the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.”Washington would preside over the birth of that wondrous work with scarcely a word, remaining formally neutral through all the secret debates that took place in Independence Hall over the long, stifling summer of 1787. A man with a strong temper and decided views, Washington nevertheless performed the duty of presiding officer punctiliously, never betraying how he felt about the array of issues that passed before him day after trying day. Again his was the satisfaction of duty done, and a triumph of self-restraint.

To create a constitution on paper is an abstract exercise. To actually put it into motion, to set a precedent with every decision he made, every address he delivered, every ceremony he presided over as the republic’s first chief executive . . . that is an even greater challenge than creating a constitution. Just as practice is a greater challenge than theory.The careful, reticent Washington well understood the importance of each gesture he made as the first president of the United States of America. And he was determined that it be the right one.

THIS OLD general with the humility to recognize his “defective education” called on the best and brightest to form his government. He set out to listen and learn from them all, without imitating the faults, prejudices, and peculiarities of any. For his cabinet, he would recruit the towering intellects of his time, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Those two headstrong geniuses pulled in opposite directions, but Washington could temper their brilliance by his own experience and judgment. And turn glittering theory into solid practice.

Again and again, the first president would have to side with one or the other of these two separate but equally strong-minded visionaries. No easy choice. Sometimes it seemed the only thing they had in common was their patriotism.

As the years and decisions went on, the old general found himself more and more agreeing with Mr. Hamilton, but he never ceased soliciting Mr. Jefferson’s counsel even if he rejected it. He listened patiently and acted graciously. (“Every action done in public ought to be done with some sign of respect for those that are present.”) And then he acted forcefully.

Washington understood that leadership must inspire trust, but it must remain leadership. He might ponder, he might wait, he would surely deliberate, but he did not waver in his convictions.

What was the secret of his success? How did he found a nation, this self made man, this self-taught general, this self-abnegating statesman? How did he manage the feats of self-discipline that turned all his ambition, all his will and vision and ambition for his country, into a still continuing story? To quote one biographer, he did it by his concern for “civility and reputation, which tamed and smoothed his natural endowments, and brought his ideals into daily life.” He did it through an unbroken series of successful gestures.