DAVID CARROLL: Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

Everybody who made it past third grade has heard the story. At the age of 6, little George Washington chopped down a cherry tree with a hatchet that he had received as a gift. It sounds legitimate. Who among us has not been gifted with a hatchet at an early age? Anyway, when his father discovered what George had done, he became angry. Young George bravely said, “Father, I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down the tree.” George’s father embraced him and declared that his son’s honesty was worth more than a thousand trees.

This tale was first spun by a minister named Mason Weems, seven years after George Washington’s death. He had written one of the first biographies of our first president. Even though he had no first-hand knowledge of his subject’s childhood years, he admitted a little embellishment “helped illustrate that Washington’s public greatness was due to his private virtues.”