Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 11, 1993 TAG: 9304110143
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By Tony Germanotta
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"THOMAS JEFFERSON STILL SURVIVES."
"Thomas Jefferson still survives."John Adams' famous last words are more true today than they were on his deathbed July 4, 1826. Unknown to Adams, the Sage of Monticello had expired a few hours earlier on his beloved "little mountain" near Charlottesville.
But as we prepare to celebrate Jefferson's 250th birthday on Tuesday, it is obvious that Adams was prophetic, not misinformed.
Jefferson truly does survive.
He lives in the money that jangles in pocket or purse, and not because his image adorns the nickel and the $2 bill. That happened long after his death, and he would have loathed it as the type of ancestor worship that begat monarchies. It was Jefferson's genius, his all-consuming practicality, that gave us the decimal-based dollar system we take for granted.
Jefferson lives in the public schools that guarantee an education to everyone and the libraries that make it possible. He mapped out the elementary, high and university network that gave a fledgling nation the advantage of skilled workers and helped America become the world's wealthiest and most productive country. And his private collection of books became the core of the Library of Congress.
He lives in the very shape of our neighborhoods and towns. Jefferson, a skilled surveyor, established the formulas under which much of America was platted and pushed through laws that ensured it would be available to everyone, not just the first-born sons of feudal lords.
He lives in the continental consciousness that makes America and the United States synonymous in our minds. It was Jefferson who engineered the Louisiana Purchase, becoming the first head of state to double a nation's size without firing a shot.
He lives in the graceful lines of classic American architecture. Jefferson brought the aesthetic science to a rough-hewn nation, and two of his masterpieces - Monticello and the University of Virginia - are among just 16 U.S. sites recognized on an international list of places that are considered indispensible to human culture.
Jefferson lives on Sundays, as Americans divide into countless denominations to worship free from government interference. He wrote Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom, a model for the country's separation of church and state.
But most vividly he lives in the idealism that provides the very foundation of freedom in America - and the inspiration for it around the world. The second sentence of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence may well be the most important ever written by man.
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness."