THOMAS JEFFEasotr, Thomas Jefferson, whose labors so thor oughly complemented those of John Adams, rests in Williamsburg, Va., beneath a plain and unassuming obelisk of granite, in the small family cemetery on the road leading to his famous homestead, Monticello. He did not regard having been twice elected to the Presidency the height of his accomplishments, as is shown by the burial tablet he wrote for his own tomb, the character of which he de signed. The lines he wished blazoned on the granite read: °Here lies buried Thomas Jef ferson, author of the Declaration of Inde pendence, of the statute of Virginia for re ligious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia? The Democrats, aided by Republicans, will erect at Washington, D. C., the most elaborate memorial to Jefferson ever erected to any famed person. But his body will not be dis turbed from its present resting place because of Jefferson's request to lie at the side of his loved ones. The spot he selected when yet a
young man. On a fly-leaf of one of his old books was found this regarding his burial: °Choose some unfrequented vale in my park, where is no sound to break the stillness, but a brook that, bubbling, winds among the woods. Let it be among the ancient and venerable oaks? The obelisk has been practically de stroyed by crazed relic hunters, who have beaten and battered the granite until only a few letters tell whose grave it is. Vandalism of an insane origin only could be responsible for such desecration. Why does not the cen tral government awaken to the duty it owes to the dead national Presidents? An infinites imal fraction of the protective tariff revenues would make these graves truly shrines for the inculcation of national patriotism.