What Would Jefferson Say?

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

It is a good time to get away from Washington and ask one of the old hands like Thomas Jefferson how the country looks from where he reposes. Jefferson is in style more than ever--the man who suspected bigness, distrusted cities, believed passionately in individuality. Jefferson is not readily available for consultation, of course. But if one cannot talk to him, then Dumas Malone, 86, the pre-eminent biographer, can stand in.

"I feel more at home here than anywhere," said the historian as he went up the hill to Monticello in the sunshine of Indian summer, his white hair ruffled by a warm breeze, facts and thoughts on "Mr. Jefferson" tumbling out in gentle accents.

"Jefferson was a humanist in the complete sense of the word," said Malone.

"Human beings always came first. . . His world is gone. His standards and values went with rural life."

Yet Jefferson's "basic faith in human beings and in the human mind," Malone said, remains the central political theology of America, the legacy of our most talented President. "Jefferson was an excessive optimist," said Malone. "He was an optimist when he probably had no business being an optimist."

"You cannot sum him up. You cannot go back to him for Government programs," said Malone. But in Jefferson is profound thought, curiosity, reason, taste, eloquence and the pursuit of excellence.

By Malone's account on that recent afternoon, Jefferson would have been appalled at the size of Government today, the number of cars on the streets (a prime cause, in Malone's eyes, of urban bad manners), the profit motive in everything, even sports, the ascendancy of merchants and bankers over the more creative farmers and industrialists, the decline of the English language and the idea that you use the White House as a "bully pulpit," in Theodore Roosevelt's phrase.

Today's political campaigning would have shocked him. "He was no man for a crowd," said Malone. "He gave few speeches. His voice was pleasant, but not strong.

His career was based on what he wrote."

Jefferson had immense popular appeal.

Within the Government, according to Malone, he had "a great gift with people. He exercised leadership over Congress. There was not another President who had such control until Woodrow Wilson."

Jefferson would have been an advocate of many of today's causes, Malone believes. He probably would have been sympathetic to Ralph Nader's consumer crusade and certainly would have been an early member of the Sierra Club, a subscriber to the Save the Whales campaign and most other environmental appeals.

Jefferson, being a gadget man, would have been mesmerized by the White House perquisites--the helicopters, Air Force One. "He would have loved air conditioning, central heating and elevators," declared Malone. "Those things made life more convenient. He would have been fascinated with the modern card catalogue in a library. But I don't know what he would have thought of television." Even in the midst of America's educational marvels, Jefferson probably would have felt pangs of disappointment. "He had a faith in knowledge," said Malone. "He felt that the world would be saved by knowledge. But we have all these libraries groaning with books, and the world has not been saved."

Malone is deep into his sixth volume on Jefferson, and it is a melancholy time for them both. Jefferson is getting old, is beset with debts. He is devastated by inflation and the panic of 1819. His insistence on excellence right up to the end compels him to buy things he cannot afford.

Malone looks ahead despite his failing eyesight. He must have research read to him now, and he must write with the aid of an electronic device. But he still painstakingly turns out a few paragraphs in a day, has finished 21 chapters and thinks there may be another six or eight to go. Like the man he has lived with for much of this century, Malone goes on with grace and "excessive optimism." He is a rare man, another legacy from Thomas Jefferson.

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