The American Spirit in the Writings of Americans of Foreign Birth
Robert Elihu[Editor] Stauffer
Transcriber’s Notes:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
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The American Spirit In The Writings Of Americans Of Foreign Birth
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The American Spirit in the Writings of Americans of Foreign Birth
Selections Chosen And Edited
By Robert E. Stauffer, A. M., B. L. S.
[Illustration]
The Christopher Publishing House Boston, U. S. A.
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Copyright 1922 By The Christopher Publishing House
Printed In U. S. A.
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To my revered friend and teacher Joseph Lorain Shunk And to my younger friend Henry Praus
The one born in the United States The other in far-away Czecho-Slovakia But in both of whom I have found True and noble manifestations Of the American spirit
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Let us judge our immigrants also out of their own mouths, as future generations will be sure to judge them.
_Mary Antin._
_He_ is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds.... The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions.
_Crèvecoeur._
Where the schoolhouse banner flaunts the morning breeze, Where the rough farm student strides amid the wheat, Where the voice of knowledge fills a thousand halls, Where the athletes in their mimic warfare meet; Where the master grasps the brand Of lightning in his hand, And the hidden Powers of Air to service bent Proclaim the issue of the long experiment, I behold the future race Arise in strength and grace; Shall they falter? Shall they fail? Shall they endure? Lo, the onward march is sure.
_William James Dawson._
Introduction
A visit to the public library of many towns and cities of five to twenty thousand inhabitants, and inquiry among persons of considerable and even college education, reveals a widespread unacquaintance with the writings of our foreign-born citizens. Seldom does one find the books of more than four or five of these authors upon the shelves of the smaller public and college libraries; yet these institutions are doing much to develop public opinion in countless communities made up for the most part of native Americans who have hitherto been largely ignorant of and indifferent to the condition and aims of the foreign population, but whose intelligent and sympathetic interest in the foreign-born must be aroused if the great gulf between the two is to be bridged.
The funds of many libraries, it is true, are so limited as to preclude the purchase of a majority of these books, worth while as they are; yet the splendid American spirit to be found in many of them ought to be more familiar to Americans, whether native or foreign-born. This volume of selections is offered, therefore, not as an equivalent for the reading of the complete works here represented, but to help stimulate a more general interest in their authors and in books of this type, and to show with a cumulative emphasis the essence of the genuine Americanism with which these writings are imbued.
As one reads these and other works of the foreign-born in historical sequence, he will notice that their manner of writing has become less reflective and philosophical and more critical and impassioned, but that keeping pace there has been an intense and burning patriotism. The early colonists and immigrants were seldom touched except in their political liberties; recent immigrants have been growing increasingly sensitive to the infringement of their social and economic rights. This, of course, is a quality not peculiar to the writings of the foreign-born, but is incident to the modern industrial and social situation with conditions very different from those obtaining in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The struggle against social forces with their great complexity and ever renewed and boundless energy has demanded of the recent immigrants the highest qualities for success.
Nearly all the selections included in this volume will be found charged with a strong human quality, revealing the poignant homesickness of the stranger in a new world, his sensitiveness, his forward-looking hope, his realization of both the humorous and the tragic side of his case, his fine hero-worship, his firm belief in the unique mission and high destiny of his adopted country, and his faith in the brotherhood of man and the dawning of a new day upon the earth.
It is not within the scope of this introduction to plead for any particular immigration policy. Whether we shall adopt one of rigid restriction or assume a liberal attitude, and what shall be the bases of the selection of the immigrant in the future, are questions to be answered not by the petty politician, the unscrupulous demagogue, the uninformed provincial, or the alarmists of little faith who, in their hysteria, would completely reverse the traditions of the nation by closing the gates entirely, but are matters to be determined by fair-minded and representative leaders after a careful and unbiased study of the problem in its various economic, social and national aspects. The chief concern here is with our attitude toward the millions of unassimilated immigrants already among us. To them it would be well for most of us to give our attention before attempting to solve the intricate and perplexing question of an immigration policy. Perhaps if we did, we might get more light and arrive at a more unanimous and consistent conclusion regarding the admission of those who are now said to be ready in such great numbers to knock at our gates.
In these selections, it is believed, will be found convincing proof that to try to educate and Americanize the foreign-born by force is not only unwise and will prove futile, because it flies in the face of the principles of human nature, but is also unnecessary. Still, the dejection on the part of many persons over our apparent failure to assimilate the immigrant is truly pathetic. But why so much despair about this, when countless thousands of native Americans have little or no realizing sense of the duties of citizenship? Who is the more culpable, the man who, being in a new land and often lonely and neglected, finds it difficult to overleap the barriers of timidity and suspicion and a foreign language and strange customs, in order to seize the larger opportunities; or the man who, though born and reared in the midst of all the advantages of American life, fails to appreciate his precious heritage and treats with indifference or abuses the sacred right of franchise? Certainly hostility and neglect will accomplish nothing, where hospitality and helpfulness may go far to induce the newcomers to avail themselves of the opportunities and responsibilities open to them in America.
An illustration of how readily the foreigner may respond to the least show of kindness and fellowship is afforded by the following incident. A traveller on a west-bound train out of New York was accosted by a young Italian immigrant, who handed him a card of the Italian Immigration Society on the reverse of which was written, “Please direct this man to Santa Cruz train.” Now it happened that the American had once visited Italy and had picked up a smattering of the language, and partly by this and partly by the use of signs he did his best to convey the desired information. He then asked the young man into his own seat; and, as they talked together of Italy and the places the American had visited, the youth’s face glowed with the joy of remembrance. And then it was revealed that this sturdy and warm-hearted Italian, from whom the American might have turned as from a “dago” and “scum of the earth,” was one of the heroes of the Great War; that he had been wounded in the terrible disaster of Caporetto, and had received from the Italian minister of war testimonials and medals for gallant conduct in battle.
It is at least a question whether a vast amount of time, energy, and money has not been misspent in a hysterical endeavor to get the adult immigrant to change his vernacular and foreign ways. Realizing from my own experience, both as a student and as a teacher of English to foreigners, the immense effort necessary to acquire even a rudimentary knowledge of a strange language after the plastic period of youth has passed, I am convinced that too much stress may be laid upon the importance of the mere acquisition of the English language by the adult immigrant.
A change in the manners and customs of the immigrant has undoubtedly a useful and necessary part in his Americanization; but undue emphasis upon mere externals may, with its false implications, easily create erroneous impressions. Just now there comes to mind in this connection an illustration prominently displayed upon the front page of one of our most respected periodicals,--a photograph of an immigrant mother standing between her two sons, one of whom is garbed in American hat and overcoat, the other in uncouth workaday attire. Beneath the picture appears this question, “Which is Americanized?” One feels he must protest against the shallow and all too prevalent thinking which finds in the mere alteration of language and dress the essentials of Americanism, and which consequently has so little constructive and farsighted assistance to give to the momentous work of Americanization. It has been far too frequently demonstrated that a person may not only wear American clothes and speak English fluently, but may have been educated from his youth up in American institutions without being really Americanized.
The elder generation should, of course, be aided in every reasonable and practicable way; but it should soberly be borne in mind that it is going to take decades, if not centuries, to Americanize America, and that the hope of the nation is in the children, both native and foreign-born. It is a splendid demonstration of the truth of this that the most fervid tributes to America come from the lips of those who have arrived in the United States in the impressionable years of youth. If, then, the rate of progress toward perfection is to be appreciably accelerated, there must be much more liberality in the support of the public schools and other educational and humanizing institutions.
What is an American, or what is Americanism? Many persons to-day are asking this question, to which perhaps only the future can give a complete answer. I venture to say, however, that an American is not one who expects to find in the United States Utopian conditions, but one who realizes the imperfections of American society and yet has faith in the ultimate goal toward which the diverse human elements here are struggling; that he is one who does not seek or propose any single panacea for the ills of the nation, but who, above all else, is conscious of his spiritual unity with those American minds that are striving in the sanest and best, though various, ways for the attainment of the high ends for which the republic was founded, and that desire to see the golden rule and “reason and the will of God” prevail in American life.
And it is just this consciousness of spiritual unity that is perhaps the most intense and valuable element in the writings of those who have paid the highest price for their citizenship, and that is so well worth bringing to the attention of those who, whether native or foreign-born, have never passed from the “centre of indifference” into the “everlasting yea” of patriotism and national feeling.
Much available and appropriate material has of necessity been omitted from this compilation, periodical articles in particular, with two exceptions, being excluded. But although the selections chosen constitute the utterances of only a small minority of the foreign-born, it is felt that their validity and representative character are not impaired. It must be remembered that there are thousands of American citizens of foreign birth leading contented and useful lives,--lawyers, physicians, clergymen, artists, teachers, and craftsmen, whose ideals and life-work have either not found expression in books, or whose writings have been impersonal in character, but who, if they were to write down their feelings, would express themselves in sentiments similar to those of their gifted compatriots of literary tendencies; and even among the inarticulate mass there is a potential devotion, which, under the proper conditions, can be kindled into an ardent loyalty and patriotism.
Theodore Roosevelt once said, in writing the foreword to one of the works here quoted: “When we tend to grow disheartened over some of the developments of our American civilization, it is well worth while seeing what this same civilization holds for starved and eager souls who have elsewhere been denied what here we hold to be as a matter of course, rights free to all--although we do not, as we should do, make these rights accessible to all who are willing with resolute earnestness to strive for them.” That in part has been the aim in bringing these selections together. It is hoped that they may contribute not a little to a better understanding between America, new and old, and that they may help to allay the fears of those who have been inclined to ascribe most of our national ills to the presence among us of the foreign-born, and who have had their share in the “wave of blind distrust of the foreigner” which has recently swept over the land. Surely, no one is justified in judging the foreign-born, or is worthy or fitted to aid in educating them in regard to the duties of citizenship, unless he has first acquainted himself with their hopes, their disappointments, their aspirations, the travail and pathos of their new birth, and their deep-rooted love for America, as set forth in their own writings; for these are probably the strongest Americanization documents we possess and one of the surest proofs of the soundness of our institutions.
Acknowledgments
For generous permission to use copyrighted selections grateful acknowledgment is given to the following publishers and individuals: To Messrs. Harper & Brothers for the selections by M. E. Ravage; to The Pilgrim Press for the selection by George A. Gordon; to Messrs. Charles Scribner’s Sons for the selection by Edwin L. Godkin; to The Four Seas Company for the selections by Robert M. Wernaer; to Fleming H. Revell Company for the selections by Edward A. Steiner; to J. B. Lippincott Company for the use of part of the address, “True Americanism,” by Carl Schurz; to The Christopher Publishing House for the selections by Enrico C. Sartorio; to Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. for the selection by Felix Adler; to Messrs. P. J. Kenedy & Sons, to the trustees of the estate of Mary J. A. O’Reilly, and to the daughters of the poet, Mrs. William E. Hocking, Miss Mary Boyle O’Reilly and Miss Elizabeth Boyle O’Reilly for the use of poems or parts of poems from the work of John Boyle O’Reilly; to The Century Company and to Miss Anzia Yezierska for the selection, “How I Found America,” from the _Century Magazine_; to The Century Company also for the selection by Oscar Straus; to Mr. Seraphim G. Canoutas for the selection from his “Hellenism in America”; to The State Historical Society of Iowa and to Mr. Jacob Van der Zee for the selection from “The Hollanders of Iowa”; to Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. and to Mr. Stefano Miele for the selection from an article by Mr. Miele in the _World’s Work_; to The Macmillan Company for the selections by Angelo Patri and E. G. Stern; to The Macmillan Company and The Outlook Company for the selections by Jacob Riis; and to Mr. Otto H. Kahn and to Mr. John Kulamer for the selections appearing under their names.
The selections by Mary Antin and Abraham M. Rihbany, and the one from Carl Schurz’s “Abraham Lincoln” are used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers of their works.
Thanks are here also cordially given to those persons, including several authors not mentioned above, who, by their courtesies and encouragement, and in a number of instances by specific suggestions, have assisted in the work of compilation and editing.
Contents[1]
Page
Introduction 9
Acknowledgments 15
Philip Schaff 20
Cosmopolitan Character of “American Nationality” 21
Frances D’Arusmont 29
The Constitution and Establishment of the Federal Government 30
Francis Lieber 33
A German Immigrant Points Out the Dangers of Segregation 34
Political Liberty in America 36
Carl Schurz 38
An Immigrant’s Tribute to Lincoln 39
“True Americanism” 40
Edwin Lawrence Godkin 44
An Immigrant’s Faith in Democracy 45
John Boyle O’Reilly 52
“The Exile of the Gael” 52
“The Pilgrim Fathers” 54
“Liberty Lighting the World” 55
“America” 57
Hans Mattson 58
Scandinavian Contribution to American Nationality 59
Jacob Riis 61
“A Young Man’s Hero”: An Immigrant’s Tribute to Roosevelt 63
Jacob Van Der Zee 66
“Why Dutch Emigrants Turned to America” 67
Edward Bok 71
Oscar Solomon Straus 72
“America and the Spirit of American Judaism” 73
Felix Adler 77
The American Ideal 78
Mary Antin 82
An Immigrant’s Tribute to the Public School and to George Washington 83
“The Law of the Fathers”: A View of the Declaration of Independence 89
Abraham Mitrie Rihbany 91
America Offers Something Better than Money 92
An Immigrant Tells his Struggles with the English Language 94
Edward Alfred Steiner 96
“The Criminal Immigrant” 97
Industrialism and the Immigrant 105
George A. Gordon 111
“The Foreign-born American Citizen”: Cost, Privilege and Duties of his Citizenship 112
Seraphim G. Canoutas 121
Americanization: Its Principles and Meaning 123
Stefano Miele 125
Some Obstacles to Americanization 126
John Kulamer 130
“The American Spirit and Americanization” 131
Enrico C. Sartorio 136
Patronizing the Foreigner 137
Training for Citizenship 140
Otto Hermann Kahn 143
“Capital and Labor--A Fair Deal” 144
Marcus Eli Ravage 150
The New Immigration 151
What College Life in the West Did for an Immigrant 152
Elizabeth G. Stern 160
The Pathos of Readjustment 161
Robert M. Wernaer 166
“The Soul of America” 167
“We Must Be True” 172
Angelo Patri 173
An Immigrant and His Father 174
An Immigrant and the Children 177
Anzia Yezierska 181
“How I Found America” 182
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LIST OF AUTHORS WITH THEIR WRITINGS FROM WHICH SELECTIONS HAVE BEEN TAKEN FOR INCLUSION IN THIS VOLUME
Page
Adler, Felix 77
_The World Crisis and Its Meaning_
Antin, Mary 82
_The Promised Land_
_They Who Knock at Our Gates_
Bok, Edward 71
Canoutas, Seraphim G. 121
_Hellenism in America_
D’Arusmont, Frances (1795-1852) 29
_Views of Society and Manners in America_
Godkin, Edwin L. (1831-1902) 44
_Problems of Modern Democracy_
Gordon, George A. 111
_The Appeal of the Nation_
Kahn, Otto H. 143
_Capital and Labor--A Fair Deal._ Pam. pub. by the author
Kulamer, John 130
_The American Spirit and Americanization_
Lieber, Francis (1800-1872) 33
_The Stranger in America_
Mattson, Hans (1832-1893) 58
_Reminiscences_
Miele, Stefano 125
_America As a Place to Make Money._ (In “World’s Work,” December, 1920)
O’Reilly, John Boyle (1844-1890) 52
_Selected Poems._ Kenedy
Patri, Angelo 173
_A Schoolmaster of the Great City_
Ravage, Marcus E. 150
_An American in the Making_
Rihbany, Abraham M. 91
_A Far Journey_
Riis, Jacob (1849-1914) 61
_The Making of an American_
_Theodore Roosevelt, the Citizen_
Sartorio, Enrico C. 136
_Social and Religious Life of Italians in America_
Schaff, Philip (1819-1893) 20
_American Nationality._ Pam.
Schurz, Carl (1829-1906) 38
_Abraham Lincoln: An Essay._ Houghton
_Speeches._ 1865. Lippincott
Steiner, Edward A. 96
_From Alien to Citizen_
_Nationalizing America_
Stern, Elizabeth G. 160
_My Mother and I_
Straus, Oscar S. 72
_The American Spirit_
Van der Zee, Jacob 66
_The Hollanders of Iowa_
Wernaer, Robert M. 166
_The Soul of America_
Yezierska, Anzia 181
_How I Found America._ (In “Century Magazine,” November, 1920)
Footnote:
[1] Several titles have been supplied by the editor; those given in the words of the author are enclosed in quotation marks.
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The American Spirit in the Writings of Americans of Foreign Birth
Philip Schaff
It is as a theologian and as editor of the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia and other religious works that Philip Schaff is chiefly known; but there is a slighter work of his which hardly deserves the neglect into which it has fallen,--that is, his address on “American Nationality,” delivered before the Irving Society of the College of St. James, Maryland, June 11th, 1856. He was born at Coire, Switzerland, and was educated at the Stuttgart Gymnasium and at the universities of Tübingen, Halle and Berlin. After traveling for a while as a private tutor he was called to a professorship in the theological seminary of the German Reformed Church at Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, and came to the United States in 1844. In 1870 he accepted the professorship of sacred literature in Union Theological Seminary, New York City. He revisited Europe several times, on one occasion going to Russia in behalf of oppressed people there. It is not unnatural that one who was born in a land that has sheltered so many nationalities, and where a strong spirit of liberty has always existed, should have so keen and farsighted an appreciation of the meaning and influence of the cosmopolitan character of the American nation.
Cosmopolitan Character of American Nationality
By nationality we understand the peculiar genius of a people which animates its institutions, prompts its actions and begets a feeling of common interest and sympathy. It is not the result of any compact, but an instinct of human nature in its social capacity, an expansion of the inborn love of self and kindred. To hate his own countrymen is as unnatural as to hate his own brothers and sisters.
Nationality grows with the nation itself and acts as a powerful stimulus in its development. But on the other side it presupposes an organized state of society and is the result of a historical process. Barbarians have no nationality, because they are no nations, but simply material for nations. It is not only the community of origin and language, but also the community of rights and duties, of laws and institutions, of deeds and sufferings, of freedom and oppression, of literature and art, of virtue and religion, that enters into the definition of a nation and gives vigor to the sense of nationality. Historical reminiscences of glory and woe, whether preserved in monuments, or written records, or oral traditions, popular songs and national airs, such as “God save the Queen,” “Ye mariners of England,” “Rule, Britannia,” “Scots wha hae with Wallace bled,” “Allons enfants de la patrie,” “Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland,” “The Star Spangled Banner,” “Hail, Columbia,” contribute powerfully to strengthen the national tie and to kindle the fire of national enthusiasm.
Nationality begets patriotism, one of the noblest of natural virtues that has filled the pages of history with so many heroic deeds and sacrifices. Who can read without admiration the immortal story of Gideon, Leonidas, Cincinnatus, Horatius Cocles, William Tell, Arnold von Winkelried, the Maid of Orleans, John Hampden, Prince William of Orange, Andreas Hofer, George Washington, who lived or died for their country?
True patriotism does not imply hatred or contempt of foreigners, and is entirely compatible with a proper regard for the rights and welfare of other nations, just as self-love and self-respect may and should coexist with the most generous philanthropy. A narrow-minded and narrow-hearted nationalism which walls out the life of the world, and for this very reason condemns itself to perpetual imprisonment in the treadmill of its own pedantry and conceit, may suit semi-barbarians, or the stagnant heathen civilization of China and Japan[2], but not an enlightened Christian people. True and false nationalism and patriotism are related to each other, as self-love to selfishness. The first is a law of nature, the second a vice. We respect a man in the same proportion in which his self-love expands into love of kindred and country, and his patriotism into love of humanity at large. Washington was always generous to the enemy and was the first to establish amicable relations with England after the conclusion of the American war. The Christian religion, which commands us to love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves, tends to purify and elevate patriotism, like every other natural virtue, by emancipating it from the selfish, overbearing, all-grasping passion of conquest, and making it contributory to the general welfare of the human family. One of the noblest acts of the English nation, as a nation, is the disinterested abolition of the African slave trade.
The events of modern times tend more and more to break down the barriers between the nations, to bring the ends of the earth together and to realize the unity and universality of the human race.
This we must steadily keep in view, if we would understand the distinctive character and mission of the _American_ nation, i. e., the people of the United States, who are emphatically called by that name, as the chief bearers of the historical life and future significance of the entire Western Continent.
In discussing this interesting topic, we shall avoid, of course, the whirlpool of party politics, and endeavor to rise above those violent sectional strifes, which, for some time past, have been and are still agitating our country on the question of the true nature of Americanism.
Of all the great nations of the earth none has entered into existence under more favorable auspices and prospects, none is better prepared and more clearly called to represent a compact, well defined and yet expansive, world-embracing nationality, than the American. Our motto, _E Pluribus Unum_, is an unconscious prophecy of our national character and destiny, as pointed out by the irresistible course of events and the indications of Providence. Out of many nations, yea, out of all the nations of Christendom, is to be gathered the one cosmopolitan nation of America on the strong and immovable foundation of the Anglo-Saxon race....
Let us now proceed to an analysis of the different elements, which enter into the composition of the American nationality and will, in their combined action, enable it to fulfil its great destiny.
It is evident to the most superficial observer that the basis of our national character is English. It is so, not only in language, but also in manners and customs, in our laws and institutions, in the structure of our domestic, political and ecclesiastical life, in our literature and religion. It is perfectly idle to think that this country will ever become German, or French, or Irish, or Dutch. Let them emigrate by hundreds of thousands from the continent of Europe, they will modify and enrich, but they can never destroy or materially change the Anglo-Saxon ground-element of the American people....
But with all due regard for good old England, America is by no means intended to be a mere copy or continuation of it. If our nationality, owing to its youth and the many foreign elements still entering into its composition, is less solid and compact than that of our older brother, it is, on the other hand, more capable of expansion and development; it is composed of a greater variety of material and destined ultimately for more comprehensive ends by the Almighty Ruler of nations, who assigned us not an island, but a continent for a home, and two oceans for a field of action.
If ever a nation was laid out on a truly cosmopolitan basis and gifted with an irresistible power of attraction, it is the American. Here where our globe ends its circuit seems to terminate the migration of the human race. To our shores they come in an unbroken stream from every direction. Even the tribes of Africa and Asia are largely represented amongst us and call our country their home. But whatever may be the ultimate fate of the red man, the negro and the Chinese, who are separated from us by the unsurmountable difference of race, it is evident that all the civilized nations of Europe, especially those of Germanic origin, have contributed and will continue to contribute to our stock. They meet here on the common ground of freedom and equality, to renew their youth and to commingle at last into one grand brotherhood, speaking one language, pervaded by one spirit, obeying the same laws, laboring for one aim, and filling in these ends of the earth the last and the richest chapter in the history of the world. As Europe is a great advance on the civilization of Asia, so we have reason to believe that America will be in the end a higher continuation of the consolidated life of Europe. The eyes of the East are instinctively turned to the West, and civilization follows the march of the sun.
The history of the colonization and growth of this country strongly supports the view here taken. The descendants of England were indeed the chief, but by no means the only agents in the Colonial period. The Dutch on the banks of the Hudson, the Swedes on the Delaware, the Germans in Pennsylvania and the neighboring States, the Huguenots in South Carolina, New York and Boston, were amongst our earliest and most useful settlers. In a more recent period Scotland, Ireland and all parts of Germany have made the largest contributions to our population. Florida, California and New Mexico are of Spanish origin. The French claimed once by right of exploration and partial occupation the immense central valley from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, and between the Alleghenies and the Rocky Mountains; and although these possessions have long since been ceded to England and the United States, the French element can never be entirely effaced on the banks of the lower Mississippi or in Canada East.
In the Revolutionary War the descendants of the Continental Europeans, especially the Germans of Pennsylvania and Virginia, in proportion to their number, fought with as much zeal and success and shed their blood as freely for the independence of the country as the Anglo-Americans. Some of them, as the Muhlenbergs and the Hiesters, acquired considerable distinction as officers of the army or members of the first Congress.
But a number of our most eminent Revolutionary heroes were not even native Americans, but came from different nations to offer us the aid of their means, their enthusiasm, their military skill and experience in the hour of trial. The Irish Montgomery died for us at the gates of Quebec. General Mercer, who fell in the battle of Princeton, was a native of Scotland. Kosciusko, the Pole, paid his early vows to liberty in our cause, and his countryman, Pulaski, perished for it at Savannah. The noble Germans, Baron de Kalb, who shared with Gaines the glory of capturing Burgoyne and fell in the battle of Camden in South Carolina, bleeding of seven wounds, and Steuben, the pupil of Frederic the Great, and the Seven Years War, who left a handsome pension to serve his adopted country and helped to decide the day at Yorktown, crowned in the new world the high military reputation which they had previously acquired in the old; they were amongst the most experienced officers in the American army, and did it essential service, especially by training, with immense labor, the raw recruits, and preparing them for the victories of the battle-field. Our Congress knew well how to appreciate their merits, by erecting to the former a monument at Annapolis, and by voting to the latter a handsome annual pension, to which the legislatures of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York added large donations of land. France threw the weight of her powerful moral influence and material aid into our scale, and sent us the Count de Rochambeau, Baron de Viomenil, and especially the Marquis of Lafayette, the citizen of two worlds, whose name will be handed down to the latest American, as well as French posterity, in inseparable connection with Washington. The West Indies gave us Alexander Hamilton, who fought gallantly in the war, and, after its conclusion, organized our financial credit and took the most distinguished part in the formation and defence of our Federal Constitution, thus joining to the laurels of the battle-field the more enduring honors of peace, like his friend, the Father of his Country, whom we justly revere and love as “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
Thus all the leading nations of Christendom were actively and honorably represented in the first settlement of our country, and in that great struggle which resulted in the birth of a new nation, and thus earned a title to a share in the blessings of its freedom....
As long, then, as we have such an immense body of land waiting for living men, and such a gigantic task of the future before us, there is no cause to discourage immigration. Let this continent of land continue to attract another continent crowded with men, that they may thus both prove a blessing to each other. How could we cherish a proscriptive spirit without striking at the fundamental creed and glory of our institutions? How could we indulge in hatred of foreigners and shut the gate to the stranger, without insulting the memory of our own fathers and of the fathers of this country? Let us never forget the sacred trust of civil and religious liberty committed to us; never forget our past history and our comprehensive destiny. Ourselves the children of the pilgrims of a former generation, let us welcome the pilgrims of the present day, and open a hospitable asylum to the oppressed and persecuted of every Christian nation. Favored by the free gift of Providence with a territory almost as large as Europe, and capable of sustaining ten times the amount of our present population, let us cordially invite and encourage the immigrants, till prairies and forests, and mountains and valleys resound with the songs of living men and the praises of God.
Here are our millions of acres stretching towards the setting sun and teeming with hidden wealth, that must be made available for the benefit of society. Here is room enough for all the science, learning, art, wisdom, virtue and religion of Europe, that, transplanted into a virgin soil and breathing the atmosphere of freedom, they may bring forth new blossoms and fruit and open a new epoch in the onward march of civilization. Here is the general congress of the noblest nations of Christendom, the sterling, energetic Briton; the strong-willed, enterprising Scotch; the hard-working, generous Irish; the industrious, deep-thinking German; the honest, liberty-loving Swiss; the hardy, thrifty Scandinavian; the even-tempered, tenacious Dutch; the easy, elegant Frenchman; the earnest, dignified Spaniard; the ingenious, imaginative Italian; the patriotic, high-minded Magyar and Pole,--that they might renew their youth, and, laying aside their prejudices and defects and uniting their virtues, may commingle into the one American nation, the freest, the most enlightened, the most comprehensive of all, the nation of the new world, the nation of the future....
The destiny and mission of such a cosmopolitan nation can hardly be estimated. It must be majestic as our rivers, magnificent as the Niagara Falls, lofty as the Rocky Mountains, vast as our territory, deep as the two oceans around it, far-reaching as the highways of commerce that already carries our name and influence to the remotest regions of the globe. History points to a boundless future before it, and nothing can prevent it from filling the most important pages in the annals of coming centuries [except] its own unfaithfulness to its providential trust....
Such high views on the destiny of our nation, so far from nourishing the spirit of vanity and self-glorification, ought rather to humble and fill us with a deep sense of our responsibility to the God of nations, who entrusted us with a great mission for the world and the Church, not from any superior excellency of our own, but from free choice and an inscrutable decree of infinite wisdom. Nor should we forget that there are fearful tendencies and dangers growing up in our national life, which threaten to unfit us for our work and to expose us to the judgment of the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, who is not bound to any particular human instrumentality, but can raise a new generation on the ruins of our own to carry out His designs. It is only in steady view of these dangers, and by an earnest struggle against evil temptations, that we can at all succeed and accomplish the great ends for which Providence has called us into existence.
Footnote:
[2] The reader will, of course, note that this statement was made prior to the modern awakening in these Oriental countries.
Frances D’Arusmont
Frances D’Arusmont, better known as Frances Wright, was born in Dundee, Scotland. She seems to have inherited the intellectuality and liberal feeling of her father, who was a man of independent means and considerable accomplishments. Scarcely three years after her birth in 1795, she lost both her parents and was brought up by a maternal aunt in England. She was largely self-educated, and from early youth was keenly interested in history, particularly the history and condition of the United States. This interest found definite expression in her determination to sail for America in 1818, where she spent two years in the States, publishing in 1821 her “Views of Society and Manners in America,” a series of letters to a friend in England. While it is true that these letters are filled with prepossessions, they had a wholesome effect in counterbalancing a great deal of ignorance about and prejudice against the United States at that time. After going back to Europe for a short stay, she returned to the United States in 1824, eager to solve the slave question. In pursuance of this desire she bought a tract of land in Tennessee, about fourteen miles northwest of Memphis, and settled negro slaves on it, in the hope that they would work out their own liberty and that the Southern planters would be induced to follow her example. The experiment proved a failure, and, with health broken, she was ordered to Europe by her physician. On returning to America again, she became a member of Robert Owen’s colony at New Harmony in Indiana, and with the assistance of Robert Dale Owen conducted a socialistic journal. At this time she frequently appeared on the lecture platform in many parts of the country. During one of her numerous trips to Europe she was married in France to M. Phiquepal-D’Arusmont. She died at Cincinnati in 1852.
Though no fanatic, Frances D’Arusmont had several qualities of the visionary, courage and enthusiasm without prudence and judgment. It is greatly to her credit and honor, however, that she was among the first to realize the importance of the slavery question and to make an effort to settle it amicably. It is to be regretted that she did not devote her life solely to the solution of this momentous problem.
The selection here given from her “Views of Society and Manners in America,” follows the text of the first New York edition, 1821.
The Constitution And Establishment Of The Federal Government
What is most worthy of admiration in the history of America is not merely the spirit of liberty which has ever animated her people, but their perfect acquaintance with the science of government, which has ever saved that spirit from preying on itself. The sages who laid the foundation of her greatness possessed at once the pride of freemen and _the knowledge of English freemen_; in building the edifice, they knew how to lay the foundation; in preserving untouched the rights of each individual, they knew how to prevent his attacking those of his neighbor: they brought with them the experience of the best governed nation then existing; and, having felt in their own persons the errors inherent in that constitution, which had enlightened, but only partly protected them, they knew what to shun as well as what to imitate in the new models which they here cast, leisurely and sagely, in a new and remote world. Thus possessed from the beginning of free institutions, or else continually occupied in procuring or defending them, the Colonies were well prepared to assume the character of independent States. There was less of an experiment in this than their enemies supposed.[3] Nothing, indeed, can explain the obstinacy of the English ministry at the commencement of the Revolutionary struggle but the supposition that they were wholly ignorant of the history of the people to whom they were opposed. May I be forgiven the observation, that the inquiries of ... have led me into the belief that some candid and well-informed English gentlemen of the present day have almost as little acquaintance with it as had Lord North.
Respecting the Revolution itself, the interest of its military history is such as to fix the attention of the most thoughtless readers; but in this, foreigners sometimes appear to imagine, was expended the whole virtue of America. That a country which could put forth so much energy, magnanimity, and wisdom, as appeared in that struggle, should suddenly lose a claim to all these qualities, would be no less surprising than humiliating. If we glance at the civil history of these republics since the era of their independence, do we find no traces of the same character? Were we to consider only the national institutions, the mild and impartial laws, the full establishment of the rights of conscience, the multiplication of schools and colleges to an extent unknown in any other country of the world, all the improvements in every branch of internal policy which have placed this people in their present state of peace and unrivalled prosperity, we must allow them to be not only wise to their interests, but alive to the pleas of humanity; but there are not wanting instances of a yet more liberal policy.
How seldom is it that history affords us the example of a voluntary sacrifice on the part of separate communities to further the common good! It appears to me that the short history of America furnishes us with more examples of this kind than that of any other nation, ancient or modern. Throughout the war of the Revolution, and for some years preceding it, the public feeling may be said to have been unusually excited. At such times, men, and societies of men, are equal to actions beyond the strength of their virtue at cooler moments. Passing on, therefore, to the peace of 1783, we find a number of independent republics gradually reconciling their separate and clashing interests, each yielding something to promote the advantage of all, and sinking the pride of individual sovereignty in that of the united whole. The remarks made by Ramsay on the adoption of the federal constitution are so apposite that I cannot resist quoting them:
“The adoption of this constitution was a triumph of virtue and good sense over the vices and follies of human nature; in some respects, the merit of it is greater than that of the Declaration of Independence. The worst of men can be urged to make a spirited resistance to invasion of their rights; but higher grades of virtue are requisite to induce freemen, in the possession of a limited sovereignty, voluntarily to surrender a portion of their natural liberties; to impose on themselves those restraints of good government which bridle the ferocity of man, compel him to respect the claims of others, and to submit his rights and his wrongs to be decided upon by the voices of his fellow citizens. The instances of nations which have vindicated their liberty by the sword are many; of those which have made a good use of their liberty when acquired are comparatively few.”
Nor did the liberality of these republics evince itself only in the adoption of the general government. We find some making voluntary concessions of vast territories, that they might be devoted to national purposes; others releasing part of their own people from existing engagements, and leaving them to consult their wishes and convenience by forming themselves into new communities.
Should we contrast this policy with that employed by other nations, we might hastily pronounce this people to be singularly free from the ordinary passions of humanity. But, no; they are only singularly enlightened in the art of government; they have learned that there is no strength without union, no union without good fellowship, and no good fellowship without fair dealing; and, having learned this, they are only singularly fortunate in being able to reduce their knowledge to practice.
Footnote:
[3] Mr. Burke, who seems to have possessed a more thorough acquaintance with the institutions and character of the Colonists than any other British statesman, insisted much on “the form of their provincial legislative assemblies,” when tracing the consequences likely to result from the oppressive acts of parliament. “Their governments,” observed this orator, “are popular in a high degree; some are merely popular; in all, the popular representative is the most weighty; and this share of the people, in their ordinary government, never fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion from whatever tends to deprive them of their chief importance.” (Author’s note.)
Francis Lieber
In these latter days when the world has been inclined to wonder whether any good could come out of Prussia, it is interesting to recall that Francis Lieber, who came to the United States in 1827 in the vanguard of the German political refugees of the early nineteenth century, was born in Berlin, March 18, 1800. His life was one of intense activity, both physical and mental. He fought in the Prussian army at Ligny and at Waterloo, and was severely wounded in the attack on Namur. After the Napoleonic wars he studied in Berlin; and in 1819, because of his political ideas, he was imprisoned on the charge of plotting against the government. He was discharged without trial; but, being forbidden to stay at the Prussian universities, he took his degree at Jena in 1820. After taking part in the Greek Revolution of 1821 he went to Rome, where he became a tutor in the family of the famous historian, Niebuhr. On returning to Berlin he was rearrested and imprisoned, but released through the efforts of Niebuhr. Tired of this relentless persecution, he left his native land forever in 1825. Before embarking for the New World he was a teacher in London for a short time.
Lieber’s first literary undertaking after reaching the United States was the editing of the Encyclopædia Americana in Boston, 1827-32. For the next twenty years he was professor of political economy in South Carolina College, where his most important works were produced,--“A Manual of Political Ethics,” 1838; “Legal and Political Hermeneutics,” 1839; “Civil Liberty and Self-government,” 1852. In 1856 he was called to a similar professorship in Columbia College, New York. He was member of the French Institute and other learned societies in Europe and America.
The spirit of the man and his work is manifested in his favorite motto, _Nullum jus sine officio, nullum officium sine jure_ (“No right without its duties, no duty without its rights”). It is not necessary to mention his numerous writings except the one of immediate interest here,--“The Stranger in America,” published in 1834, a series of letters written to a friend in Germany. In the selection that follows, the reader will be struck by the wisdom and foresight in pointing out the danger of segregation and the futility of German immigrants attempting to erect a German state within the United States.
A German Immigrant Points Out The Dangers Of Segregation
The Germans, as I said, form a most valuable addition to our population, when mingled with the great predominant race inhabiting the northern part of this continent. Whenever colonists settle among a different nation, in such numbers and so closely together that they may live on among themselves, without intermixture with the original inhabitants, a variety of inconveniences will necessarily arise. Living in an isolated state, the current of civilization of the country in which they live does not reach them; and they are equally cut off from that of their mother country: mental stagnation is the consequence. They remain a foreign element, an ill-joined part of the great machinery of which they still form, and needs must form, a part. Sometimes, indeed, particular circumstances may alter the view of the case. When the French Protestant colonists were received into Prussia, it was perhaps judicious to allow them, for example in Berlin, to form for a time a community for themselves, to have their own jurisdiction, schools, and churches, because they were more perfect in many branches of industry than the people among whom they settled; and, had they been obliged to immerge forthwith, their skill, so desirable to those who received them, might have been lost.
At present, however, they too are immerged in the mass of the population. Besides, the inconvenience arising from their forming a separate community was never very great, since they were few in number, and belonged by their professions to the better educated classes. But take an example in the Hussites, who settled in Germany; remember the Bohemian village near Berlin, called Rixdorf, the inhabitants of which obstinately refused intermarrying with Germans, and many of whom, until very recently, continued to speak Bohemian only. Those, therefore, who lately proposed to form a whole German state in our west, ought to weigh well their project before they set about it, if ever it should become possible to put this scheme into practice, which I seriously doubt. “Ossification,” as the Germans call it, would be the unavoidable consequence. These colonists would be unable, though they might come by thousands and tens of thousands, to develop for themselves German literature, German language, German law, German science, German art; everything would remain stationary at the point where it was when they brought it over from the mother country, and within less than fifty years our colony would degenerate into an antiquated, ill-adapted element of our great national system, with which, sooner or later, it must assimilate. What a voluntary closing of the eyes to light would it be for a colony among people of the Anglican race, which, in point of politics, has left every other race far behind, to strive to isolate itself!
Political Liberty In America
As a thousand things co-operated in ancient Greece to produce that unrivalled state of perfection in which we find the fine arts to have been there,--a happy constellation of the most fortunate stars,--so a thousand favorable circumstances concur in America to make it possible that a far greater amount of liberty can be introduced into all the concerns of her political society than ever was possible before with any other nation, or will be at any future period, yet also requiring its sacrifices, as the fine arts with the Greeks required theirs.
The influence of this nation has been considerable already; it will be much more so yet in ages to come; political ideas will be developed here, and have a decided effect on the whole European race, and, for aught I know, upon other races. But as the Grecian art has kindled the sense of the beautiful with many nations, but never could be equalled again (as a national affair), so it is possible that political notions, developed here and received by other nations, will have a sound influence only if in their new application they are modified to the given circumstances; for it is not in the power of any man or nation to create all those circumstances under the shade of which liberty reposes here. Politics is civil architecture, and a poor architect indeed is he who forgets three things in building: the place where the building is to be raised, the materials with which he has to build, and the object for which the structure is erected. If the materials are Jews of Palestine, and if the object of the fabric be to keep the people as separate from neighbors as possible, the architect would not obtain his end by a constitution similar to that of one of our new States.
It was necessary for the Americans, in order to make them fit to solve certain political problems, which, until their solution here, were considered chimerical (take as an instance the keeping of this immense country without a garrison), that they should descend from the English, should begin as persecuted colonists severed from the mother country, and yet loving it with all their heart and all their soul; to have a continent, vast and fertile, and possessing those means of internal communication which gave to Europe the great superiority over Asia and Africa; to be at such a distance from Europe that she should appear as a map; to be mostly Protestants, and to settle in colonies with different charters, so that, when royal authority was put down, they were as so many independent States, and yet to be all of one metal, so that they never ceased morally to form one nation, nor to feel as such.
You may say, “Strange, that an abuse of liberty, as this apparent or real party strife in election contests actually is, should lead you to the assertion that no nation is fitter for a government of law.” Yet I do repeat it. How would it be with other nations? It would be _after_ an election of this kind that the real trouble would only _begin_; we see an instance in South America. Here, on the other hand, as soon as the election is over, the contest is settled, and the citizen obeys the law. “Keep to the right, as the law directs,” you will often find on sign-boards on bridges in this country. It expresses the authority which the law here possesses. I doubt very much whether the Romans, noted for their obedience to the law, held it in higher respect than the Americans.
Carl Schurz
Carl Schurz, probably the most eminent of German immigrants to the United States, was born in Rhenish Prussia, in 1829. He came to America in 1852 and settled in Missouri, from which State he was sent to Congress as Senator. He served as a general in the Union Army during the Civil War. In 1875 he removed to New York City and was editor of _The Evening Post_ from 1881 to 1884. He was active in support of civil service reform, and as a political thinker commanded high respect. His most notable works are his “Speeches,” his “Reminiscences,” a “Life of Henry Clay,” and “Abraham Lincoln: an Essay.” The last was originally published in _The Atlantic Monthly_ as a review of “Abraham Lincoln: A History,” by Nicolay and Hay. As a tribute to the life and work of Lincoln it is worthy to stand beside the “Commemoration Ode” of Lowell and the memorial poems of Whitman. Both from his natural sympathies and endowments and because of his participation in the events of the time, Schurz was eminently qualified to write on the subject. With fine enthusiasm and yet avoiding extravagant eulogy, he never loses sight of the essentially human characteristics of the great President. The following passage comprises the closing words of the essay. The selections on “True Americanism” are taken from an address delivered in Faneuil Hall, Boston, on the 18th of April, 1859.
An Immigrant’S Tribute To Lincoln
To the younger generation Abraham Lincoln has already become a half-mythical figure, which, in the haze of historic distance, grows to more and more heroic proportions, but also loses in distinctness of outline and feature. This is indeed the common lot of popular heroes; but the Lincoln legend will be more than ordinarily apt to become fanciful, as his individuality, assembling seemingly incongruous qualities and forces in a character at the same time grand and most lovable, was so unique, and his career so abounding in startling contrasts. As the state of society in which Abraham Lincoln grew up passes away, the world will read with increasing wonder of the man who, not only of the humblest origin, but remaining the simplest and most unpretending of citizens, was raised to a position of power unprecedented in our history; who was the gentlest and most peace-loving of mortals, unable to see any creature suffer without a pang in his own breast, and suddenly found himself called to conduct the greatest and bloodiest of our wars; who wielded the power of government when stern resolution and relentless force were the order of the day, and then won and ruled the popular mind and heart by the tender sympathies of his nature; who was a cautious conservative by temperament and mental habit, and led the most sudden and sweeping social revolution of our time; who, preserving his homely speech and rustic manner even in the most conspicuous position of that period, drew upon himself the scoffs of polite society, and then thrilled the soul of mankind with utterances of wonderful beauty and grandeur; who, in his heart the best friend of the defeated South, was murdered because a crazy fanatic took him for its most cruel enemy; who, while in power, was beyond measure lampooned and maligned by sectional passion and an excited party spirit, and around whose bier friend and foe gathered to praise him--which they have since never ceased to do--as one of the greatest of Americans and the best of men.
True Americanism
It is one of the earliest recollections of my boyhood that one summer night our whole village was stirred up by an uncommon occurrence. I say our village, for I was born not far from the beautiful spot where the Rhine rolls his green waters out of the wonderful gate of the Seven Mountains, and then meanders with majestic tranquillity through one of the most glorious valleys of the world. That night our neighbors were pressing around a few wagons covered with linen sheets and loaded with household utensils and boxes and trunks to their utmost capacity. One of our neighboring families was moving far away across a great water, and it was said they would never again return. And I saw silent tears trickling down weather-beaten cheeks, and the hands of rough peasants firmly pressing each other, and some of the men and women hardly able to speak when they nodded to one another a last farewell. At last the train started into motion, they gave three cheers for _America_, and then in the first gray dawn of the morning I saw them wending their way over the hill until they disappeared in the shadow of the forest. And I heard many a man say, how happy he would be if he could go with them to that great and free country, where a man could be himself.
That was the first time that I heard of America, and my childish imagination took possession of a land covered partly with majestic trees, partly with flowery prairies, immeasurable to the eye, and intersected with large rivers and broad lakes,--a land where everybody could do what he thought best, and where nobody need be poor because everybody was free.
And later, when I was old enough to read, and descriptions of this country and books on American history fell into my hands, the offspring of my imagination acquired the colors of reality, and I began to exercise my brain with the thought what man might be and become when left perfectly free to himself. And still later, when ripening into manhood, I looked up from my schoolbooks into the stir and bustle of the world, and the trumpet-tones of struggling humanity struck my ear and thrilled my heart, and I saw my nation shake her chains in order to burst them, and I heard a gigantic, universal shout for Liberty rising up to the skies; and at last, after having struggled manfully and drenched the earth of Fatherland with the blood of thousands of noble beings, I saw that nation crushed down again, not only by overwhelming armies, but by the dead weight of customs and institutions and notions and prejudices, which past centuries had heaped upon them, and which a moment of enthusiasm, however sublime, could not destroy; then I consoled an almost despondent heart with the idea of a youthful people and of original institutions clearing the way for an untrammeled development of the ideal nature of man. Then I turned my eyes instinctively across the Atlantic Ocean, and America and Americanism, as I fancied them, appeared to me as the last depositories of the hopes of all true friends of humanity.
I say all this, not as though I indulged in the presumptuous delusion that my personal feelings and experience would be of any interest to you, but in order to show you what America is to the thousands of thinking men in the old world, who, disappointed in their fondest hopes and depressed by the saddest experience, cling with their last remnant of confidence in human nature, to the last spot on earth where man is free to follow the road to attainable perfection, and where, unbiased by the disastrous influence of traditional notions, customs, and institutions, he acts on his own responsibility. They ask themselves: Was it but a wild delusion when we thought that man has the faculty to be free and to govern himself? Have we been fighting, were we ready to die, for a mere phantom, for a mere product of a morbid imagination? This question downtrodden humanity cries out into the world, and from this country it expects an answer....
They speak of the greatness of the Roman Republic! Oh, sir, if I could call the proudest of Romans from his grave, I would take him by the hand and say to him, Look at this picture, and at this! The greatness of the Roman Republic consisted in its despotic rule over the world; the greatness of the American Republic consists in the secured right of man to govern himself. The dignity of the Roman citizen consisted in his exclusive privileges; the dignity of the American citizen consists in his holding the natural rights of his neighbor just as sacred as his own. The Roman Republic recognized and protected the _rights of the citizen_, at the same time disregarding and leaving unprotected the _rights of man_; Roman citizenship was founded upon monopoly, not upon the claims of human nature. What the citizen of Rome claimed for himself, he did not respect in others; his own greatness was his only object; his own liberty, as he regarded it, gave him the privilege to oppress his fellow-beings. His democracy, instead of elevating mankind to its own level, trampled the rights of man into the dust. The security of the Roman Republic, therefore, consisted in the power of the sword; the security of the American Republic rests in the equality of human rights! The Roman Republic perished by the sword; the American Republic will stand as long as the equality of human rights remains inviolate. Which of the two Republics is the greater--the Republic of the Roman, or the Republic of _man_?
Sir, I wish the words of the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created free and equal, and are endowed with certain inalienable rights,” were inscribed upon every gatepost within the limits of this Republic. From this principle the Revolutionary Fathers derived their claim to independence; upon this they founded the institutions of this country, and the whole structure was to be the living incarnation of this idea. This principle contains the programme of our political existence. It is the most progressive, and at the same time the most conservative one; the most progressive, for it takes even the lowliest members of the human family out of their degradation, and inspires them with the elevating consciousness of equal human dignity; the most conservative, for it makes a common cause of individual rights. From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor’s rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own. And when the rights of one cannot be infringed without finding a ready defence in all others who defend their own rights in defending his, then, and only then, are the rights of all safe against the usurpation of governmental authority.
This general identity of interests is the only thing that can guarantee the stability of democratic institutions. Equality of rights, embodied in general self-government, is the great moral element of true democracy; it is the only reliable safety-valve in the machinery of modern society. There is the solid foundation of our system of government; there is our mission; there is our greatness; there is our safety; there, and nowhere else! This is true Americanism, and to this I pay the tribute of my devotion.
Edwin Lawrence Godkin
Edwin Lawrence Godkin was born of English ancestry at Moyne, County Wicklow, Ireland, on October 2, 1831. His father, the Rev. James Godkin, a Presbyterian minister of literary talents, after being forced from his pulpit for espousing the cause of Young Ireland, became a journalist of some distinction. The son received his preparatory education at Armagh, and at Silcoates School, Wakefield, Yorkshire. In 1846 he entered Queen’s College, Belfast. After graduating from this institution in 1851, he went to London to study law at Lincoln’s Inn. After some journalistic experience in the Crimea and in Belfast, he came to America in 1856 and settled in New York. His real career began with the founding of _The New York Nation_ in 1865. His connection with this journal was both long and distinguished, and his efforts for the encouragement of a sound and enlightened public opinion have recently been appropriately recognized in the semi-centenary volume, “Fifty Years of American Idealism,” edited by Gustav Pollak. He contributed many incisive essays on political and economic subjects to various magazines. The most important of these have been collected in three volumes, “Reflections and Comments,” “Problems of Modern Democracy,” and “Unforeseen Tendencies of Democracy.” It is from the opening essay of the second that the following selection is taken.
Wendell Phillips Garrison, his associate, said of him: “As no American could have written Bryce’s ‘American Commonwealth’ or Goldwin Smith’s ‘History of the United States,’ so it may be doubted if any native of this country could have erected the standard of political independence which Mr. Godkin set up in _The Nation_ and maintained in _The Evening Post_. He did this, however, not as a foreigner, but as an American to the core. A utilitarian of the school of Bentham, an economist of the school of John Stuart Mill, an English Liberal to whom America, with all its flagrant inconsistency of slaveholding, was still the hope of universal democracy, he cast in his lot with us, became a naturalized citizen, took an American wife--gave every pledge to the land of his adoption except that of being a servile follower of party.” Brilliant, thoughtful, questioning, he was keenly sensible of the many evil tendencies in modern democracy; yet with philosophic insight he rejected the unsound comparisons drawn by many political thinkers between ancient aristocratic democracies and modern democracy, which he viewed as a new experiment and therefore to be tested by new principles and new conditions.
An Immigrant’S Faith In Democracy[4]
If, indeed, the defects which foreign observers see, and many of which Americans acknowledge and deplore, in the politics and society of the United States were fairly chargeable to democracy,--if “the principle of equality” were necessarily fatal to excellence in the arts, to finish in literature, to simplicity and force in oratory, to fruitful exploration in the fields of science, to statesmanship in the government, to discipline in the army, to grace and dignity in social intercourse, to subordination to lawful authority, and to self-restraint in the various relations of life,--the future of the world would be such as no friend of the race would wish to contemplate; for the spread of democracy is on all sides acknowledged to be irresistible. Even those who watch its advance with most fear and foreboding confess that most civilized nations must erelong succumb to its sway. Its progress in some countries may be slower than in others, but it is constant in all; and it is accelerated by two powerful agencies,--the Christian religion and the study of political economy.
The Christian doctrine that men, however unequal in their condition or in their gifts on earth, are of equal value in the eyes of their Creator, and are entitled to respect and consideration, if for no other reason, for the simple one that they are human souls, long as it has been preached, has, strange to say, only very lately begun to exercise any perceptible influence on politics. It led a troubled and precarious life for nearly eighteen hundred years in conventicles and debating clubs, in the romance of poets, in the dreams of philosophers and the schemes of philanthropists. But it is now found in the cabinets of kings and statesmen, on the floor of parliament houses, and in the most secret of diplomatic conferences. It gives shape and foundation to nearly every great social reform, and its voice is heard above the roar of every revolution.
And it derives invaluable aid in keeping its place and extending its influence in national councils from the rapid spread of the study of political economy, a science which is based on the assumption that men are free and independent. There is hardly one of its principles which is applicable to any state of society in which each individual is not master of his own actions and sole guardian of his own welfare. In a community in which the relations of its members are regulated by status and not by contract, it has no place and no value. The natural result of the study and discussion which the ablest thinkers have expended on it during the last eighty years has been to place before the civilized world in the strongest light the prodigious impulse which is given to human energy and forethought and industry, and the great gain to society at large, by the recognition in legislation of the capacity, as well as of the right, of each human being to seek his own happiness in his own way. Of course no political system in which this principle has a place can long avoid conceding to all who live under it equality before the law; and from equality before the law to the possession of an equal share in the making of the laws, there is, as everybody must see who is familiar with modern history, but a very short step.
If this spread of democracy, however, was sure, as its enemies maintain, to render great attainments and great excellence impossible or rare, to make literary men slovenly and inaccurate and tasteless, artists mediocre, professors of science dull and unenterprising, and statesmen conscienceless and ignorant, it would threaten civilization with such danger that no friend of progress could wish to see it. But it is difficult to discover on what it is, either in history or human nature, that this apprehension is founded. M. de Tocqueville and all his followers take it for granted that the great incentive to excellence, in all countries in which excellence is found, is the patronage and encouragement of an aristocracy; that democracy is generally content with mediocrity. But where is the proof of this? The incentive to exertion which is widest, most constant, and most powerful in its operation in all civilized countries, is the desire of distinction; and this may be composed either of love of fame or love of wealth, or of both. In literary and artistic and scientific pursuits, sometimes the strongest influence is exerted by a love of the subject. But it may be safely said that no man has ever yet labored in any of the higher callings to whom the applause and appreciation of his fellows was not one of the sweetest rewards of his exertions. There is probably not a masterpiece in existence, either in literature or in art, probably few discoveries in science have ever been made, which we do not owe in a large measure to the love of distinction. Who paints pictures, or has ever painted them, that they may delight no eye but his own? Who writes books for the mere pleasure of seeing his thoughts on paper? Who discovers or invents, and is willing, provided the world is the better of his discoveries or inventions, that another should enjoy the honor? Fame has, in short, been in all ages and in all countries recognized as one of the strongest springs of human action--
“The spur that doth the clear spirit raise To scorn delight and live laborious days,--”
sweetening toil, robbing danger and poverty and even death itself of their terrors.
What is there, we would ask, in the nature of democratic institutions, that should render this great spring of action powerless, that should deprive glory of all radiance, and put ambition to sleep? Is it not notorious, on the contrary, that one of the most marked peculiarities of democratic society, or of a society drifting toward democracy, is the fire of competition which rages in it, the fevered anxiety which possesses all its members to rise above the dead level to which the law is ever seeking to confine them, and by some brilliant stroke become something higher and more remarkable than their fellows? The secret of that great restlessness, which is one of the most disagreeable accompaniments of life in democratic countries, is in fact due to the eagerness of everybody to grasp the prizes of which in aristocratic countries only the few have much chance. And in no other society is success more worshipped, is distinction of any kind more widely flattered and caressed. Where is the successful author, or artist, or discoverer, the subject of greater homage than in France or America? And yet in both the principle of equality reigns supreme; and his advancement in the social scale has gone on _pari passu_ in every country with the spread of democratic ideas and manners. Grub Street was the author’s retreat in the aristocratic age; in this democratic one, he is welcome at the King’s table, and sits at the national council board. In democratic societies, in fact, excellence is the first title to distinction; in aristocratic ones, there are two or three others which are far stronger, and which must be stronger, or aristocracy could not exist. The moment you acknowledge that the highest social position ought to be the reward of the man who has the most talent, you make aristocratic institutions impossible. But to make the thirst for distinction lose its power over the human heart, you must do something more than establish equality of conditions; you must recast human nature itself....
There are some, however, who, while acknowledging that the love of distinction will retain its force under every form of social or political organization, yet maintain that to excel in the arts, science, or literature requires leisure, and the possession of leisure implies the possession of fortune. This men in a democratic society cannot have, because the absence of great hereditary wealth is necessary to the perpetuation of democracy. Every man, or nearly every man, must toil for a living; and therefore it becomes impossible for him to gratify the thirst for distinction, let him feel it ever so strongly. The attention he can give to literature or art or science must be too desultory and hasty, his mental training too defective, to allow him to work out valuable results or conduct important researches. To achieve great things in these fields, it is said and insinuated, men must be elevated, by the possession of fortune, above the vulgar, petty cares of life; their material wants must be provided for before they concentrate their thoughts with the requisite intensity on the task before them. Therefore it is to aristocracy we must look for any great advance in these pursuits.
The history of literature and art and philosophy is, however, very far from lending confirmation to this opinion. If it teaches us anything, it teaches us that the possession of leisure, far from having helped men in the pursuit of knowledge, seems to have impeded them. Those who have pursued it most successfully are all but invariably those who have pursued it under difficulties. The possession of great wealth no doubt gives facilities for study and cultivation which the mass of mankind do not possess; but it at the same time exerts an influence on the character which, in a vast majority of cases, renders the owner unwilling to avail himself of them. We owe to the Roman aristocracy the great fabric of Roman jurisprudence; but, since their time, what has any aristocracy done for art and literature, or law? They have for over a thousand years been in possession of nearly the whole resources of every country in Europe. They have had its wealth, its libraries, its archives, its teachers, at their disposal; and yet was there ever a more pitiful record than the list of “Royal and Noble Authors.” One can hardly help being astonished, too, at the smallness and paltriness of the legacies which the aristocracy of the aristocratic age has bequeathed to this democratic age which is succeeding it. It has, indeed, handed down to us many glorious traditions, many noble and inspiring examples of courage and fortitude and generosity. The democratic world would certainly be worse off than it is if it never heard of the Cid, or Bayard, or Du Guesclin, of Montrose, or Hampden, or Russell. But what has it left behind it for which the lover of art may be thankful, by which literature has been made richer, philosophy more potent or more fruitful? The painting and sculpture of modern Europe owe not only their glory, but their very existence, to the labors of poor and obscure men. The great architectural monuments by which its soil is covered were hardly any of them the product of aristocratic feeling or liberality. If we except a few palaces and a few fortresses, we owe nearly all of them to the labor or the genius or the piety of the democratic cities which grew up in the midst of feudalism. If we take away the sum total of the monuments of Continental art all that was created by the Italian republics, the commercial towns of Germany and Flanders, and the communes of France, and by the unaided efforts of the illustrious obscure, the remainder would form a result poor and pitiful indeed. We may say much the same thing of every great work in literature, and every great discovery in science. Few of them have been produced by men of leisure, nearly all by those whose life was a long struggle to escape from the vulgarest and most sordid cares. And what is perhaps most remarkable of all is, that the Catholic Church, the greatest triumph of organizing genius, the most impressive example of the power of combination and of discipline which the world has ever seen, was built up and has been maintained by the labors of men drawn from the humblest ranks of society.
Aristocracy applied itself exclusively for ages to the profession of arms. If there was anything at which it might have seemed hopeless for democracy to compete with it, it was in the raising, framing and handling of armies. But the very first time that a democratic society found itself compelled to wage war in defence of its own ideas, it displayed a force, an originality, a vigor and rapidity of conception, in this, to it, new pursuit, which speedily laid Europe at its feet. And the great master of the art of war, be it ever remembered, was born in obscurity and bred in poverty.
Nor, long as men of leisure have devoted themselves to the art of government, have they made any contributions worth mentioning to political science. They have displayed, indeed, consummate skill and tenacity in pursuing any line of policy on which they have once deliberately fixed; but all the great political reforms have been, though often carried into effect by aristocracies, conceived, agitated, and forced on the acceptance of the government by the middle and lower classes. The idea of equality before the law was originated in France by literary men. In England, the slave-trade was abolished by the labors of the middle classes. The measure met with the most vigorous opposition in the House of Lords. The emancipation of the negroes, Catholic emancipation, Parliamentary reform, law reform, especially the reform in the criminal law, free trade, and, in fact, nearly every change which has had for its object the increase of national happiness and prosperity, has been conceived by men of low degree, and discussed and forced on the upper classes by men busy about many other things.
We are, however, very far from believing that democratic society has no dangers or defects. What we have been endeavoring to show is that the inquiry into their nature and number has been greatly impeded by the natural disposition of foreign observers to take the United States as a fair specimen of what democracy is under the most favorable circumstances. The enormous extent of unoccupied land at our disposal, which raises every man in the community above want, by affording a ready outlet for surplus population, is constantly spoken of as a condition wholly favorable to the democratic experiment,--more favorable than could possibly offer itself elsewhere. In so far as it contributes to the general happiness and comfort, it no doubt makes the work of government easy; but what we think no political philosopher ought to forget is that it also offers serious obstacles to the settlement of a new society on a firm basis, and produces a certain appearance of confusion and instability, both in manners and ideas, which unfit it to furnish a basis for any inductions of much value as to the tendencies to defects either of an equality of conditions or of democratic institutions.
Footnote:
[4] From “Problems of Modern Democracy.” Copyright, 1896, by Charles Scribner’s Sons. By permission of the publishers.
John Boyle O’Reilly
The extremely romantic life of John Boyle O’Reilly began on June 28th, 1844, at Dowth Castle, near the town of Drogheda in Ireland. His chivalrous nature and passionate love of country and of liberty were stimulated by the traditions and beauty of the surroundings and by the atmosphere of legend and story in which he was brought up by his schoolmaster father and clever and gifted mother. As a young man he was employed as a compositor in a printing office in Ireland and later at Preston in Lancashire. In consequence of his connection with the Fenian movement he was banished to Australia, whence he escaped to America in 1869, settling in Boston, where his ability as poet, journalist and orator was quickly recognized. Maurice Francis Egan has said of him: “In the United States, after adventures by sea and land, and tortures and suffering borne with a heroism that was both Greek and Christian, he found the spirit of freedom in concrete form. Our country satisfied his aspirations for liberty; he loved Ireland not less, but America more; he was exiled from the land of his birth, yet he found ample consolation in the country he had chosen.”
The life of the poet by James Jeffrey Roche, together with his complete poems and speeches, edited by Mrs. O’Reilly, was published by Cassell in 1891. A volume of selected poems was published by Kenedy in 1913.
The Exile Of The Gael
“What have ye brought to our Nation-building, Sons of the Gael? What is your burden or guerdon from old Innisfail?”
“No treasure we bring from Erin--nor bring we shame nor guilt! The sword we hold may be broken, but we have not dropped the hilt! The wreath we bear to Columbia is twisted of thorns, not bays, And the songs we sing are saddened by thoughts of desolate days. But the hearts we bring for Freedom are washed in the surge of tears, And we claim our right by a People’s fight outliving a thousand years!”
“What bring ye else to the Building?” “Oh, willing hands to toil; Strong natures tuned to the harvest-song and bound to the kindly soil; Bold pioneers for the wilderness, defenders in the field,-- The sons of a race of soldiers who never learned to yield. Young hearts with duty brimming--as faith makes sweet the due; Their truth to me their witness they cannot be false to you!”
“What send ye else, old Mother, to raise our mighty wall? For we must build against Kings and Wrongs a fortress never to fall.”
“I send you in cradle and bosom, wise brain and eloquent tongue, Whose crowns should engild my crowning, whose songs for me should be sung. Oh, flowers unblown, from lonely fields, my daughters with hearts aglow, With pulses warm with sympathies, with bosoms pure as snow,-- I smile through tears as the clouds unroll--my widening river that runs! My lost ones grown in radiant growth--proud mothers of free-born sons.”
“It is well, aye, well, old Erin! The sons you give to me Are symboled long in flag and song--your Sunburst on the Sea. All mine by the chrism of Freedom, still yours by their love’s belief; And truest to me shall the tenderest be in a suffering Mother’s grief. Their loss is the change of the wave to the cloud, of the dew to the river and main; Their hope shall persist through the sea and the mist, and thy streams shall be filled again. As the smolt of the salmon go down to the sea, and as surely come back to the river, Their love shall be yours while your sorrow endures, for God guardeth His right forever.”
The Pilgrim Fathers
In every land wherever might holds sway The Pilgrims’ leaven is at work to-day. The Mayflower’s cabin was the chosen womb Of light predestined for the nations’ gloom. God grant that those who tend the sacred flame May worthy prove of their Forefathers’ name. More light has come,--more dangers, too, perplex: New prides, new greeds, our high condition vex. The Fathers fled from feudal lords and made A freehold state; may we not retrograde To lucre-lords and hierarchs of trade. May we, as they did, teach in court and school There must be classes, but no class shall rule: The sea is sweet, and rots not like the pool. Though vast the token of our future glory, Though tongue of man hath not told such a story, Surpassing Plato’s dream, More’s phantasy, still we Have no new principles to keep us free. As Nature works with changeless grain on grain, The truths the Fathers taught we need again. Depart from this, though we may crowd our shelves With codes and precepts for each lapse and flaw, And patch our moral leaks with statute law, We cannot be protected from ourselves! Still must we keep in every stroke and vote The law of conscience that the Pilgrims wrote; Our seal their secret: _Liberty can be;_ _The State is freedom if the Town is free._ The death of nations in their work began; They sowed the seed of federated man. Dead nations were but robber-holds, and we The first battalion of Humanity! All living nations, while our eagles shine, One after one, shall swing into our line; Our freeborn heritage shall be the guide And bloodless order of their regicide; The sea shall join, not limit; mountains stand Dividing farm from farm, not land from land. O People’s Voice! when farthest thrones shall hear; When teachers own; when thoughtful rabbis know; When artist minds in world-wide symbol show; When serfs and soldiers their mute faces raise; When priests on grand cathedral altars praise; When pride and arrogance shall disappear, The Pilgrims’ Vision is accomplished here!
Liberty Lighting The World[5]
Majestic warder by the nation’s gate, Spike-crowned, flame-armed like Agony or Glory, Holding the tablets of some unknown law, With gesture eloquent and mute as Fate,-- We stand about thy feet in solemn awe, Like desert-tribes who seek their sphinx’s story, And question thee in spirit and in speech; What art thou? Whence? What comest thou to teach? What vision hold those introverted eyes Of revolutions framed in centuries? Thy flame--what threat, or guide for sacred way? Thy tablet--what commandment? What Sinai? Lo! as the waves make murmur at thy base, We watch the somber grandeur of thy face, And ask thee--what thou art.
I am Liberty--God’s daughter! My symbols--a law and a torch; Not a sword to threaten slaughter, Nor a flame to dazzle or scorch; But a light that the world may see And a truth that shall make men free.
I am the sister of Duty, And I am the sister of Faith; To-day adored for my beauty, To-morrow led forth to death. I am she whom ages prayed for; Heroes suffered undismayed for; Whom the martyrs were betrayed for!
I am Liberty! Fame of nation or praise of statute is naught to me: Freedom is growth and not creation: one man suffers, one man is free. One brain forges a constitution; but how shall the million souls be won? Freedom is more than a resolution--he is not free who is free alone.
Justice is mine, and it grows by loving, changing the world like the circling sun; Evil recedes from the spirit’s proving as mist from the hollows when night is done. Hither, ye blind, from your futile banding; know the rights and the rights are won;
Wrong shall die with the understanding--one truth clear and the work is done. Nature is higher than Progress or Knowledge, whose need is ninety enslaved for ten; My word shall stand against mart and college; _The planet belongs to its living men!_ And hither, ye weary ones and breathless, searching the seas for a kindly shore, I am Liberty! patient, deathless--set by love at the nation’s door.
America[6]
O Land magnanimous, republican! The last for Nationhood, the first for Man! Because thy lines by Freedom’s hand were laid, Profound the sin to change or retrograde. From base to cresting let thy work be new; ’Twas not by aping foreign ways it grew. To struggling peoples give at least applause; Let equities, not precedent, subtend your laws; Like rays from that great Eye the altars show, That fall triangular, free states should grow, The soul above, the brain and hand below. Believe that strength lies not in steel nor stone; That perils wait the land whose heavy throne, Though ringed by swords and rich with titled show, Is based on fettered misery below; That nations grow where every class unites For common interests and common rights; Where no caste barrier stays the poor man’s son, Till step by step the topmost height is won; Where every hand subscribes to every rule, And free as air are voice and vote and school! A nation’s years are centuries. Let Art Portray thy first, and Liberty will start From every field in Europe at the sight. “Why stand these thrones between us and the light?” Strong men will ask, “Who built these frontier towers To bar out men of kindred blood with ours?”
Oh, this thy work, Republic! this thy health, To prove man’s birthright to a commonwealth; To teach the peoples to be strong and wise, Till armies, nations, nobles, royalties, Are laid at rest with all their fears and hates; Till Europe’s thirteen monarchies are states, Without a barrier and without a throne, Of one grand federation like our own!
Footnotes:
[5] The poem is given in the abridged form in which it is printed in the volume of O’Reilly’s selected poems, published by P. J. Kenedy & Sons.
[6] This poem, which is here quoted in part only, was read at the reunion of the Army of the Potomac, in Detroit, June 14, 1882, General Grant being present on the occasion.
Hans Mattson
Hans Mattson was the son of an independent freeholder and successful farmer of the parish of Onnestad, near the city of Kristianstad, Sweden. In an unpretending little cabin built by his father he spent the first years of his happy and peaceful childhood. On one occasion he was taken by his parents to see the king, who was to pass by on the highway near his home. In the midst of the confusion he did succeed in getting a glimpse of King Oscar I. In his childish mind he had fancied that the king and his family and all others in authority were the peculiar and elect people of the Almighty, but after this event he began to entertain serious doubts as to the correctness of his views on this matter.
After a year and a half in the Swedish army he decided to leave the service and try his luck “in a country where inherited names and titles were not the necessary conditions of success.” He says: “At that time America was little known in our part of the country, only a few persons having emigrated from the whole district. But we knew that it was a new country, inhabited by a free and independent people, that it had a liberal government and great natural resources, and these inducements were sufficient for us.”
From the time of his arrival at Boston until his final settling in Minnesota, his career is but typical of that of the many sturdy and enterprising pioneers of Scandinavian origin who have contributed so much to the building of the Northwest. He served as a colonel in the Civil War, and in 1869 was elected as Secretary of State in Minnesota. Later he was Consul General of the United States in India.
The selection that follows is taken from the final chapter of his “Reminiscences,” the English translation of which was published in 1892.
Scandinavian Contribution To American Nationality
It is a great mistake which some make, to think that it is only for their brawn and muscle that the Northmen have become a valuable acquisition to the American population; on the contrary, they have done, and are doing, as much as any other nationality within the domain of mind and heart. Not to speak of the early discovery of America by the Scandinavians four hundred years before the time of Columbus, they can look back with proud satisfaction on the part they have taken in all respects to make this great republic what it is to-day.
The early Swedish colonists in Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey worked as hard for liberty and independence as the English did in New England and in the South. There were no tories among them, and when the Continental Congress stood wavering equal in the balance for and against the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, it was a Swede, John Morton (Mortenson), of the old Delaware stock, who gave the casting vote of Pennsylvania in favor of the sacred document.
When, nearly a century later, the great rebellion burst upon the land, a gallant descendant of the Swedes, Gen. Robert Anderson, met its first shock at Fort Sumter, and, during the bitter struggle of four years which followed, the Scandinavian-Americans were as true and loyal to their adopted country as their native-born neighbors, giving their unanimous support to the cause of the Union and fighting valiantly for it. Nor should it be forgotten that it was the Swede, John Ericsson, who, by his inventive genius, saved the navy and the great seaports of the United States, and that it was another Swede by descent, Admiral Dahlgren, who furnished the model for the best guns of our artillery. Surely love of freedom, valor, genius, patriotism and religious fervor was not planted in America by the seeds brought over in the Mayflower alone.
Yes, it is verily true that the Scandinavian immigrants, from the early colonists of 1638 to the present time, have furnished strong hands, clear heads and loyal hearts to the republic. They have caused the wilderness to blossom like the rose; they have planted schools and churches on the hills and in the valleys; they have honestly and ably administered the public affairs of town, county and state; they have helped to make wise laws for their respective commonwealths and in the halls of Congress; they have, with honor and ability, represented their adopted country abroad; they have sanctified the American soil by their blood, shed in freedom’s cause on the battle-fields of the Revolution and the Civil War; and, though proud of their Scandinavian ancestry, they love America and American institutions as deeply and as truly as do the descendants of the Pilgrims, the starry emblem of liberty meaning as much to them as to any other citizen.
Therefore, the Scandinavian-American feels a certain sense of ownership in the glorious heritage of American soil, with its rivers, lakes, mountains, valleys, woods and prairies, and in all its noble institutions; and he feels that the blessings which he enjoys are not his by favor or sufferance, but by right;--by moral as well as civil right. For he took possession of the wilderness, endured the hardships of the pioneer, contributed his full share toward the grand results accomplished, and is in mind and heart a true and loyal American citizen.
Jacob Riis
Jacob Riis, who may well stand as a representative of the best that America has received from the Scandinavian countries, was born at Ribe, Denmark, May 3, 1849. He emigrated to the United States in 1870, where he subsequently obtained a position as reporter on _The New York Tribune_ and _The Evening Sun_. It is at the close of his well-known autobiography that he relates how he came to a realization that he was indeed an American in heart as well as in name. In words of patriotic fervor he says:--
“I have told the story of the making of an American. There remains to tell how I found out that he was made and finished at last. It was when I went back to see my mother once more and, wandering about the country of my childhood’s memories, had come to the city of Elsinore. There I fell ill of a fever and lay many weeks in the house of a friend upon the shore of the beautiful Oeresund. One day when the fever had left me, they rolled my bed into a room overlooking the sea. The sunlight danced upon the waves, and the distant mountains of Sweden were blue against the horizon. Ships passed under full sail up and down the great waterway of the nations. But the sunshine and the peaceful day bore no message to me. I lay moodily picking at the coverlet, sick and discouraged and sore--I hardly knew why myself. Until all at once there sailed past, close inshore, a ship flying at the top the flag of freedom, blown out on the breeze till every star in it shone bright and clear. That moment I knew. Gone were illness, discouragement, and gloom! Forgotten weakness and suffering, the cautions of doctor and nurse. I sat up in bed and shouted, laughed and cried by turns, waving my handkerchief to the flag out there. They thought I had lost my head, but I told them no, thank God! I had found it, and my heart, too, at last. I knew then that it was my flag; that my children’s home was mine, indeed; that I also had become an American in truth. And I thanked God, and, like unto the man sick of the palsy, arose from my bed and went home, healed.”
Besides being the author of several books, such as “The Battle with the Slum,” “How the Other Half Lives,” and “The Children of the Poor,” dealing with the life of the people of New York’s East Side, he was an active and practical reformer. In the course of his struggles to ameliorate the condition of the poor, he met Theodore Roosevelt and formed the friendship which inspired the volume represented in the following selection. Riis and Roosevelt had much in common. There was in both a great deal of the old Anglo-Saxon fighting spirit, ennobled by modern influences and employed in defense of right and justice. Their mutual and steadfast devotion to each other resembled that of ancient liegeman and lord. This hero-worship is, after all, not unique in our history. It should be a cause for great pride that so many of our leaders, of whom, of course, Lincoln is the most striking example, by embodying the noblest and the best in American life, have been the living ideal of countless immigrants.
A Young Man’S Hero: An Immigrant’S Tribute To Roosevelt
There was never a day that called so loudly for such as he, as does this of ours. Not that it is worse than other days; I know it is better. I find proof of it in the very fact that it is as if the age-long fight between good and evil had suddenly come to a head, as if all the questions of right, of justice, of the brotherhood, which we had seen in glimpses before, and dimly, had all at once come out in the open, craving solution one and all. A battle royal, truly! A battle for the man of clean hands and clean mind, who can think straight and act square; the man who will stand for the right “because it is right”; who can say, and mean it, that “it is hard to fail, but worse never to have tried to succeed.” A battle for him who strives for “that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to him who does not shrink from danger, from hardship or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph.” I am but quoting his own words, and never, I think, did I hear finer than those he spoke of Governor Taft when he had put by his own preferences and gone to his hard and toilsome task in the Philippines; for the whole royal, fighting soul of the man was in them.
“But he undertook it gladly,” he said, “and he is to be considered thrice fortunate; for in this world the one thing supremely worth having is the opportunity coupled with the capacity to do well and worthily a piece of work the doing of which is of vital consequence to the welfare of mankind.”
There is his measure. Let now the understrappers sputter. With that for our young men to grow up to, we need have no fear for the morrow. Let it ask what questions it will of the Republic, it shall answer them, for we shall have men at the oars.
This afternoon the newspaper that came to my desk contained a cable despatch which gave me a glow at the heart such as I have not felt for a while. Just three lines; but they told that a nation’s conscience was struggling victoriously through hate and foul play and treason: Captain Dreyfus was to get a fair trial. Justice was to be done at last to a once despised Jew whose wrongs had held the civilized world upon the rack; and the world was made happy. Say now it does not move! It does, where there are men to move it,--I said it before: men who believe in the right and are willing to fight for it. When the children of poverty and want came to Mulberry Street for justice, and I knew they came because Roosevelt had been there, I saw in that what the resolute, courageous, unyielding determination of one man to see right done in his own time could accomplish. I have watched him since in the Navy Department, in camp, as Governor, in the White House, and more and more I have made out his message as being to the young men of our day, himself the youngest of our Presidents. I know it is so, for when I speak to the young about him, I see their eyes kindle, and their handshake tells me that they want to be like him, and are going to try. And then I feel that I, too, have done something worth doing for my people. For, whether for good or for evil, we all leave our mark upon our day, and his is that of a clean, strong man who fights for the right _and wins_.
Now, then, a word to these young men who, all over our broad land, are striving up toward the standard he sets, for he is their hero by right, as he is mine. Do not be afraid to own it. The struggle to which you are born, and in which you are bound to take a hand if you would be men in more than name, is the struggle between the ideal and the husk; for life without ideals is like the world without the hope of heaven, an empty, meaningless husk. It is your business to read its meaning into it by making the ideals real. The material things of life are good in their day, but they pass away; the moral remain to bear witness that the high hopes of youth are not mere phantasms. Theodore Roosevelt _lives his ideals_; therefore you can trust them. Here they are in working shape: “Face the facts as you find them; strive steadily for the best.” “Be never content with less than the possible best, and never throw away the possible best because it is not the ideal best.” Maxims, those, for the young man who wants to make the most of himself and his time. Happily for the world, the young man who does not is rare.
Jacob Van Der Zee
“The Hollanders of Iowa,” by Jacob Van der Zee, was published at Iowa City in 1912 by the State Historical Society of Iowa. The following facts regarding the author and his book are given in the introduction of the editor, Mr. Benjamin F. Shambaugh:--
“The author of this volume on ‘The Hollanders of Iowa’ was admirably fitted for the task. Born of Dutch parents in The Netherlands and reared among kinsfolk in Iowa, he has been a part of the life which is portrayed in these pages. At the same time Mr. Van der Zee’s education at The State University of Iowa, his three years’ residence at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and his research work in The State Historical Society of Iowa have made it possible for him to study the Hollanders objectively as well as subjectively. Accordingly, his book is in no respect an overdrawn, eulogistic account of the Dutch people.
“The history of the Hollanders of Iowa is not wholly provincial: it suggests much that is typical in the development of Iowa and in the larger history of the West: it is ‘a story of the stubborn and unyielding fight of men and women who overcame the obstacles of a new country and handed down to their descendants thriving farms and homes of peace and plenty.’”
The selection here given comprises chapter four of the book.
Why Dutch Emigrants Turned To America
Such was the condition of things in The Netherlands that thousands of people lived from hand to mouth, the prey of poverty and hunger, stupefied by the hopelessness of securing the necessities of life, and barely enabled through the gifts of the well-to-do to drag out their wretched lives. At the same time many of these unfortunate persons were hopeful and eager to find a place where they might obtain a livelihood, lead quiet lives of honesty and godliness, and educate their children in the principles of religion without let or hindrance. The leaders of the Separatists looked forward to a life of freedom in a land where man would not have to wait for work, but where work awaited man, where people would not rub elbows by reason of the density of population, and where God’s creation would welcome the coming of man.
When social forces such as these, mostly beyond human control, began to operate with increasing power, the Dutch people were not slow to recognize the truth that emigration was absolutely necessary. The seriousness of the situation dawned upon all thinking men,--especially upon state officials, who feared that unless the stream of emigration could be directed toward the Dutch colonies, their country would suffer an enormous drain of capital and human lives. Accordingly the attention of prospective emigrants was called to the Dutch East Indies,--chiefly to the advantages of the rich island of Java, “that paradise of the world, the pearl in Holland’s crown.”
The religion of the Dissenters, however, was responsible for turning the balance in favor of some other land. To them Java was a closed door. Beside the fear of an unhealthful climate towered the certainty of legislation hostile to their Christian principles and ideals. Moreover, could poor men afford the expense of transportation thither, and could they feel assured of getting land or work in Java? State officials, men of learning, and men of business from several parts of the country were summoned to an important conference at Amsterdam to discuss the whole emigration movement. The Separatist leaders were asked why they should not remain Netherlanders under the House of Orange by removing to the colonies just as the people of the British Isles found homes in the English colonies. Two Separatist ministers appealed to the government to direct the flood of emigration toward Java by promises of civil and religious liberty. But the attempt to secure a free Christian colony in Java produced only idle expectations.
Then it was that the people turned their eyes away from the East toward the United States of North America,--a land of freedom and rich blessings, where they hoped to find in its unsettled interior some spot adaptable to agriculture, and thus rescue themselves from the miseries of a decadent state. To the discontented, ambitious Hollander was presented the picture of a real land of promise, where all things would smile at him and be prepared, as it were, to aid him. It was said that “after an ocean passage of trifling expense the Netherlander may find work to do as soon as he sets foot on shore; he may buy land for a few florins per acre; and feel secure and free among a people of Dutch, German and English birth, who will rejoice to see him come to increase the nation’s wealth.” Asserting that they could vouch for the truthfulness of this picture, as based on the positive assurances and experiences of friends already in America, the Separatist clergyman-pamphleteers openly declared that they would not hesitate to rob Holland of her best citizens by helping them on their way to America.
Of the people and government of the United States, Scholte, who was destined to lead hundreds of his countrymen to the State of Iowa, at an early date cherished a highly favorable opinion, which he expressed as follows:--
“I am convinced that a settlement in some healthful region there will have, by the ordinary blessing of God, excellent temporal and moral results, especially for the rising generation.... Should it then excite much wonder that I have firmly resolved to leave The Netherlands and together with so many Christian relatives adopt the United States as a new fatherland?
“There I shall certainly meet with the same wickedness which troubles me here; yet I shall find also opportunity to work. There I shall certainly find the same, if not still greater, evidence of unbelief and superstition; but I shall also find a constitutional provision which does not bind my hands in the use of the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God; there I can fight for what I believe without being disobedient to the magistrates and authorities ordained by God. There I shall find among men the same zeal to obtain this world’s goods; but I shall not find the same impulse to get the better of one another, for competition is open to all; I shall not find the same desire to reduce the wages of labor, nor the same inducement to avoid taxation, nor the same peevishness and groaning about the burden of taxation.
“There I shall find no Minister of Public Worship, for the separation of Church and State is a fact. There I shall not need to contribute to the support of pastors whose teachings I abhor. I shall find no school commissions nor school supervisors who prohibit the use of the Bible in schools and hinder the organization of special schools, for education is really free. I shall find there the descendants of earlier inhabitants of Holland, among whom the piety of our forefathers still lives, and who are now prepared to give advice and aid to Hollanders who are forced to come to them.”
Scholte, however, never claimed to be a refugee from the oppression of the Old World. He left Europe because the social, religious, and political condition of his native country was such that, according to his conviction, he could not with any reasonable hope of success work for the actual benefit of honest and industrious fellow-men. Very many members of Scholte’s emigrant association felt certain that they and their children would sink from the middle class and end their lives as paupers, if they remained in Holland.
Later emigration to America was in no small degree due to a cause which has always operated in inducing people to abandon their European homes. After a period of residence in America, Hollanders, elated by reason of their prosperity and general change of fortune, very naturally reported their delight to friends and relatives in the fatherland, strongly urging them to come and share their good luck instead of suffering from want in Holland. They wrote of higher wages, fertile soil, cheapness of the necessities of life, abundance of cheap land, and many other advantages. If one’s wages for a day’s work in America equalled a week’s earnings in Holland, surely it was worth while to leave that unfortunate country. Such favorable reports as these were largely instrumental in turning the attention of Hollanders to the New World as the one great land of opportunity.
Edward Bok
Although it was impossible to include in this volume selections from “The Americanization of Edward Bok,” recently published, it seems that some mention should be made of this delightfully reminiscent autobiography and of its author, who came to this country in 1870 as a little Dutch boy of six years.
There are entertaining chapters on his passion for collecting autographs from famous people, on his visit to Boston and Cambridge to see Holmes and Longfellow and Emerson, on his relations with prominent statesmen and other notable men of his time, and on his experiences as editor of an influential and successful magazine; but most pertinent to the purpose of this work are the last two chapters of the book, “Where America Fell Short with Me,” and “What I Owe to America,” which should be read by all those actively interested in the Americanization of the foreign-born. In the first of these he points out that America failed to teach him thrift or economy; that the importance of doing a task thoroughly, the need of quality rather than quantity, was not inculcated; that the public school fell short in its responsibility of seeing that he, a foreign-born boy, acquired the English language correctly; that he was not impressed with a wholesome and proper respect for law and authority; and that, at the most critical time, when he came to exercise the right of suffrage, the State offered him no enlightenment or encouragement. Yet, in spite of all this, he is able to say: “Whatever shortcomings I may have found during my fifty-year period of Americanization; however America may have failed to help my transition from a foreigner into an American, I owe to her the most priceless gift that any nation can offer, and that is opportunity.”
Oscar Solomon Straus
Oscar S. Straus, formerly United States Ambassador to Turkey, was born in Bavaria. Besides the degree A.B. from Columbia University, he has received honorary degrees from various institutions. He was appointed a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, 1902, and Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the cabinet of President Roosevelt, and has held many other prominent positions in civil and political affairs.
His chief writings are: “The Origin of Republican Form of Government in the United States,” 1886; “Roger Williams, the Pioneer of Religious Liberty,” 1894; “The American Spirit,” a collection of various addresses, published in one volume by the Century Company in 1893. The address selected for quotation here is that delivered at the banquet of the American Hebrew Congregations, in New York, January 18, 1911.
America And The Spirit Of American Judaism
The spirit of American Judaism first asserted itself when Stuyvesant, the Governor of New Amsterdam, would not permit the few Jews who had emigrated from Portugal to unite with the other burghers in standing guard for the protection of their homes. When the tax-collector came to Asser Levy to demand a tax on this account, he asked whether that tax was imposed on all the residents of New Amsterdam. “No,” was the reply, “it is only imposed upon the Jews, because they do not stand guard!” “I have not asked to be exempted,” replied Asser Levy. “I am not only willing, but I demand the right to stand guard.” That right the Jews have asserted and exercised as officers in the ranks of the Continental Army and in every crisis of our national history from that time until the present day.
The American spirit and the spirit of American Judaism were nurtured in the same cradle of Liberty, and were united in origin, in ideals, and in historical development. The closing chapter of the chronicles of the Jews on the Iberian peninsula forms the opening chapter of their history on this Continent. It was Luis Santangel, “the Beaconsfield of his time,” assisted by his kinsman Gabriel Sanches, the Royal Treasurer of Aragon, who advanced out of his own purse seventeen thousand florins which made the voyages of Columbus possible. Luis de Torres, the interpreter as well as the surgeon and the physician of the little fleet, and several of the sailors who were with Columbus on his first voyage, as shown by the record, were Jews.
Looking back through this vista of more than four centuries, we have reason to remember with justified gratitude the foresight and signal services of those Spanish Jews who had the wisdom to divine the far-reaching possibilities of the plans of the great navigator, whom the King and the Queen, the Dukes and the Grandees united in regarding as merely “a visionary babbler” or, worse than this, as “a scheming adventurer.” The royal patrons were finally won over by the hope that Columbus might discover new treasures of gold and precious stones to enrich the Spanish crown. But not so with the Jewish patrons, who caused Columbus, or, as he was then called, Christopher Colon, to be recalled, and who, without security and without interest, advanced the money to fit out his caravels, since they saw, as by divine inspiration, the promise and possibility of the discovery of another world, which, in the words of the late Emilio Castelar--the historian, statesman, and one time President of Spain--“would afford to the quickening principles of human liberty a temple reared to the God of enfranchised and redeemed conscience, a land that would offer an unstained abode to the ideals of progress.” Fortunately, the records of these transactions are still preserved in the archives of Simancas in Seville.
It is idle to speculate upon hypothetical theories in the face of the facts of history. Of course, America would have been discovered and colonized had Columbus never lived; but had the streams of the beginnings of American history flown from other sources in other directions, it would be futile even to make an imaginative forecast of the effect they would have produced upon the history and development of this Continent. The merciless intolerance of an ecclesiastical system and the horror of its persecutions stimulated the earliest immigration, and subsequently brought about the Reformation in Saxon and Anglo-Saxon lands, and the same spirit drove to our shores the Pilgrim and the Puritan fathers; which chain of circumstances destined this country from the very beginning to be the land of the immigrant and a home for the fugitive and the persecuted.
The difference between government by kings and nobles and government under a Democracy is, that the former rests upon the power to compel obedience, while the latter rests essentially upon the sacrifice by the individual for the community, based upon the ideals of right and justice. If the Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the Huguenots brought with them, as they certainly did, the remembrance of sufferings for ideals and the spirit of sacrifice, how much longer was that remembrance, and with how much greater intensity did that spirit glow in the souls of the Jews, whose whole history is a record of martyrdom, of suffering, and of sacrifice for the ideals of civil and religious liberty; concerning whom it has been said: “Of all the races and nations of mankind which quarter the arms of Liberty on the shields of their honor, none has a better title to that decoration than the Jews.”
The spirit of Judaism became the mother spirit of Puritanism in Old England; and the history of Israel and its democratic model under the Judges inspired and guided the Pilgrims and the Puritans in their wandering hither and in laying the foundation of their commonwealths in New England. The piety and learning of the Jews bridged the chasm of the Middle Ages; and the torch they bore amidst trials and sufferings lighted the pathway from the ancient to the modern world.
“The historical power of the prophets of Israel,” says James Darmesteter, “is exhausted neither by Judaism nor by Christianity, and they hold a reserve force for the benefit of the coming century. The twentieth century is better prepared than the nineteen preceding it to understand them.” While Zionism is a pious hope and a vision out of despair in countries where the victims of oppression are still counted by millions, the republicanism of the United States is the nearest approach to the ideals of the prophets of Israel that ever has been incorporated in the form of a state. The founders of our government converted the dreams of philosophers into a political system,--a government by the people, for the people, whereunder the rights of man became the rights of men, secured and guaranteed by a written constitution. Ours is peculiarly a promised land wherein the spirit of the teachings of the ancient prophets inspired the work of the fathers of our country.
American liberty demands of no man the abandonment of his conscientious convictions; on the contrary, it had its birth, not in the narrowness of uniformity, but in the breadth of diversity, which patriotism fuses together into a conscious harmony for the highest welfare of all. The Protestant, the Catholic, and the Jew, each and all need the support and the sustaining power of their religion to develop their moral natures and to keep alive the spirit of self-sacrifice which American patriotism demands of every man, whatever may be his creed or race, who is worthy to enjoy the blessings of American citizenship.
I do not wish to be misunderstood as claiming any special merit for the Jews as American citizens which is not equally possessed by the Americans of other creeds. They have the good as well as the bad among them, the noble and the ignoble, the worthy and the unworthy. They have the qualities as well as the defects of their fellow-citizens. In a word, they are not any less patriotic Americans because they are Jews, nor any less loyal Jews because they are primarily patriotic Americans.
The Jew is neither a newcomer nor an alien in this country or on this continent; his Americanism is as original and ancient as that of any race or people with the exception of the American Indian and other aborigines. He came in the caravels of Columbus, and he knocked at the gates of New Amsterdam only thirty-five years after the Pilgrim Fathers stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock.
Felix Adler
Felix Adler, lecturer and writer on moral and ethical subjects, was born in Alzey, Germany, in 1851. He received the degree A.B. from Columbia University, and continued his studies at Berlin and at the University of Heidelberg. From 1874 to 1876 he was professor of Hebrew at Cornell University. Since 1902 he has been professor of political and social ethics at Columbia. He has produced numerous works on moral and ethical topics. In 1915 there was published his book, “The World Crisis and its Meaning,” the third chapter of which is here quoted in part.
Adler’s keen interest in international ethics has been expressed in several addresses delivered before the New York Society of Ethical Culture, which was founded by him in 1876. Among other things he pleads for altruism among the nations, and truthfulness, and believes in a purified nationalism instead of anti- or inter-nationalism.
The American Ideal
The American ideal is that of the uncommon quality latent in the common man. Necessarily it is an ethical ideal, a spiritual ideal; otherwise it would be nonsense. For, taking men as they are, they are assuredly not equal. The differences between them, on the contrary, are glaring. The common man is not uncommonly fine spiritually, but rather, seen from the outside, “uncommonly” common. It is therefore an ethical instinct that has turned the people toward this ethical conception.
It is true that in Germany and in England, side by side with the efficiency and the mastery ideals, there has always existed this same spiritual or religious ideal; side by side with the stratification and entitulation of men, the labelling of them as lower and higher, as empirically better or worse, there has always been the recognition that men are equal,--equal, that is to say, in church, but not outside, equal in the hereafter, but not in this life. If we would fathom the real depth and inner significance of the democratic ideal as it slumbers or dreams in the heart of America, rather than as yet explicit, we must say that it is an ideal which seeks to overcome this very dualism, seeks to take the spiritual conception of human equality out of the church and put it into the market place, to take it from far off celestial realms for realization upon this earth. For men are not equal in the empirical sense; they are equal only in the spiritual sense, equal only in the sense that the margin of achievement of which any person is capable, be it wide or narrow, is infinitesimal compared with his infinite spiritual possibilities.
It is because of this subconscious ethical motive that there is this generous air of expectation in America, that we are always wondering what will happen next, or who will happen next. Will another Emerson come along? Will another Lincoln come along? We do not know. But this we know, that the greatest lusters of our past already tend to fade in our memory, not because we are irreverent, but because nothing that the past has accomplished can content us; because we are looking for greatness beyond greatness, truth beyond truth ever yet spoken. The Germans have a legend that in their hour of need an ancient emperor will arise out of the tomb where he slumbers to stretch his protecting hand over the Fatherland. We Americans, too, have the belief that, if ever such an hour comes for us, there will arise spirits clothed in human flesh amongst us sufficient for our need, but spirits that will come, as it were, out of the future to meet our advancing host and lead it, not ghosts out of the storied past. For America differs from all other nations in that it derives its inspiration from the future. Every other people has some culture, some civilization, handed down from the past, of which it is the custodian, and which it seeks to develop. The American people have no such single tradition. They are dedicated, not to the preservation of what has been, but to the creation of what never has been. They are the prophets of the future, not the priests of the past.
I have spoken above of ideals, of what is fine in a nation, of fine tendencies. The idea which a people has of itself, like the idea which an individual has of himself, often does not tally with the reality. If we look at the realities of American life,--and, on the principle of _corruptio optimi pessima_, we should be prepared for what we see,--we are dismayed to observe in actual practice what seems like a monstrous caricature,--not democracy, but plutocracy; kings expelled and the petty political bosses in their stead; merciless exploitation of the economically weak,--a precipitate reduction of wages, for instance, at the first signs of approaching depression, in advance of what is required,--instead of respect for the sacred personality of human beings, the utmost disrespect. Certainly the nation needs strong and persistent ethical teaching in order to make it aware of its better self and of what is implied in the political institutions which it has founded.
But ethical teaching alone will not suffice. It must be admitted that a danger lurks in the idea of equality itself. The danger is that differences in refinement, in culture, in intellectual ability and attainments are apt to be insufficiently emphasized; that the untutored, the uncultivated, the intellectually undeveloped, are apt presumptuously to put themselves on a par with those of superior development; and hence that superiority, failing to meet with recognition, will be discouraged and democracy tend to level men downward instead of upward. This will not be true so much of such moral excellence as appears in an Emerson or a Lincoln,--for there is that in the lowliest which responds to the manifestations of transcendent moral beauty,--but it will hold good of those minor superiorities that fall short of the highest in art and science and conduct, yet upon the fostering of which depends the eventual appearance of culture’s richest fruits.
In order to ward off this danger we must have a new and larger educational policy in our schools than has yet been put in practice. Vocational training in its broadest and deepest sense will be our greatest aid.
Democracy, the American democracy, is the St. Christopher. St. Christopher bore the Christ child on his shoulders as he stepped into the river, and the child was as light as a feather. But it became heavier and heavier as he entered the stream, until he was well nigh borne down by it. So we, in the heyday of 1776, stepped into the stream with the infant Democracy on our shoulders, and it was light as a feather’s weight; but it is becoming heavier and heavier the deeper we are getting into the stream--heavier and heavier. When we began, there were four or five millions. Now there are ninety millions. Heavier and heavier! And there are other millions coming. When we began we were a homogeneous people; now there are those twenty-three languages spoken in a single school. And with this vast multitude, and this heterogeneous population, we are trying the most difficult experiment that has ever been attempted in the world,--trying to invest with sovereignty the common man. There has been the sovereignty of kings, and now and then a king has done well. There has been the sovereignty of aristocracies, and now and then an English aristocracy or a Venetian aristocracy has done well--though never wholly well. And now we are imposing this most difficult task of government, which depends on the recognition of excellence in others, so that the best may rule in our behalf, on the shoulders of the multitude. These are our difficulties. But our difficulties are also our opportunities. This land is the Promised Land. It is that not only in the sense in which the word is commonly taken--that is to say, a haven for the disadvantaged of other countries, a land whither the oppressed may come to repair their fortunes and breathe freely and achieve material independence. That is but one side of the promise. In that sense the Anglo-American native population is the host, extending hospitality, the benefactor of the immigrants. But this is also the land of promise for the native population themselves, in order that they may be penetrated by the influence of what is best in the newcomers, in order that their too narrow horizon may be widened, in order that their stiffened mental bent may become more flexible; that festivity, pageant and song may be added to their life by the newcomers; that echoes of ancient prophecy may inspire the matter-of-fact, progressive movements, so-called, of our day.
America is the Wonderland, hid for ages in the secret of the sea, then revealed. At first, how abused! Spanish conquerors trampled it; it was the nesting place of buccaneers, adventurers, if also the home of the Puritans--bad men and good men side by side. Then for dreary centuries the home of slavery. Then the scene of prolonged strife. And now, on the surface, the stamping ground of vulgar plutocrats! And yet, in the hearts of the elect,--yes, and in the hearts of the masses, too,--inarticulate and dim, there has ever been present a fairer and nobler ideal, the ideal of a Republic built on the uncommon fineness in the common man! To live for that ideal is the true Americanism, the larger patriotism. To that ideal, not on the field of battle, as in Europe, but in the arduous toil of peace, let us be willing to give the “last full measure of devotion.”
Mary Antin
With the publication in 1912 of Mary Antin’s “The Promised Land,” a new interest was awakened in the experiences of the foreign-born, and since then several important autobiographies of immigrants have appeared.
Miss Antin, who was born in Polotzk, Russia, in 1881, and came to America in 1894, was educated in the public schools of Boston, later attending Teachers’ College and Barnard College, Columbia University. Many an American boy and girl is familiar with her fine tribute to the part of the public school in her Americanization.
In 1914 she published “They Who Knock at Our Gates,” “a complete gospel of immigration,” in which she aims to refute the material and selfish arguments of the restrictionists, basing her plea for a nobler and more liberal treatment of the immigration question upon the fundamental principles of the Declaration of Independence. It is from this volume and “The Promised Land” that the following selections are taken.
An Immigrant’S Tribute To The Public School And To George Washington
The public school has done its best for us foreigners, and for the country, when it has made us into good Americans. I am glad it is mine to tell how the miracle was wrought in one case. You should be glad to hear of it, you born Americans; for it is the story of the growth of your country; of the flocking of your brothers and sisters from the far ends of the earth to the flag you love; of the recruiting of your armies of workers, thinkers, and leaders. And you will be glad to hear of it, my comrades in adoption; for it is a rehearsal of your own experience, the thrill and wonder of which your own hearts have felt.
How long would you say, wise reader, it takes to make an American? By the middle of my second year in school I had reached the sixth grade. When, after the Christmas holidays, we began to study the life of Washington, running through a summary of the Revolution, and the early days of the Republic, it seemed to me that all my reading and study had been idle until then. The reader, the arithmetic, the song book, that had so fascinated me until now, became suddenly sober exercise books, tools wherewith to hew a way to the source of inspiration. When the teacher read to us out of a big book with many bookmarks in it, I sat rigid with attention in my little chair, my hands tightly clasped on the edge of my desk; and I painfully held my breath, to prevent sighs of disappointment escaping, as I saw the teacher skip the parts between bookmarks. When the class read, and it came my turn, my voice shook and the book trembled in my hands. I could not pronounce the name of George Washington without a pause. Never had I prayed, never had I chanted the songs of David, never had I called upon the Most Holy, in such utter reverence and worship as I repeated the simple sentences of my child’s story of the patriot. I gazed with adoration at the portraits of George and Martha Washington, till I could see them with my eyes shut. And whereas formerly my self-consciousness had bordered on conceit, and I thought myself an uncommon person, parading my schoolbooks through the streets, and swelling with pride when a teacher detained me in conversation, now I grew humble all at once, seeing how insignificant I was beside the Great.
As I read about the noble boy who would not tell a lie to save himself from punishment, I was for the first time truly repentant of my sins. Formerly I had fasted and prayed and made sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, but it was more than half play, in mimicry of my elders. I had no real horror of sin, and I knew so many ways of escaping punishment. I am sure my family, my neighbors, my teachers in Polotzk--all my world, in fact--strove together, by example and precept, to teach me goodness. Saintliness had a new incarnation in about every third person I knew. I did respect the saints, but I could not help seeing that most of them were a little bit stupid, and that mischief was much more fun than piety. Goodness, as I had known it, was respectable, but not necessarily admirable. The people I really admired, like my Uncle Solomon and Cousin Rachel, were those who preached the least and laughed the most. My sister Frieda was perfectly good, but she did not think the less of me because I played tricks. What I loved in my friends was not inimitable. One could be downright good if one really wanted to. One could be learned if one had books and teachers. One could sing funny songs and tell anecdotes if one traveled about and picked up such things, like one’s uncles and cousins. But a human being strictly good, perfectly wise, and unfailingly valiant, all at the same time, I had never heard or dreamed of. This wonderful George Washington was as inimitable as he was irreproachable. Even if I had never, never told a lie, I could not compare myself to George Washington; for I was not brave,--I was afraid to go out when snowballs whizzed,--and I could never be the First President of the United States.
So I was forced to revise my own estimate of myself. But the twin of my new-born humility, paradoxical as it may seem, was a sense of dignity I had never known before. For if I found that I was a person of small consequence, I discovered at the same time that I was more nobly related than I had ever supposed. I had relatives and friends who were notable people by the old standards,--and I had never been ashamed of my family,---but this George Washington, who died long before I was born, was like a king in greatness, and he and I were Fellow-Citizens. There was a great deal about Fellow-Citizens in the patriotic literature we read at this time; and I knew from my father how he was a Citizen through the process of naturalization, and how I also was a Citizen by virtue of my relation to him. Undoubtedly I was a Fellow-Citizen, and George Washington was another. It thrilled me to realize what sudden greatness had fallen on me, and at the same time sobered me, as with a sense of responsibility. I strove to conduct myself as befitted a Fellow-Citizen.
Before books came into my life, I was given to stargazing and daydreaming. When books were given me, I fell upon them as a glutton pounces on his meat after a period of enforced starvation. I lived with my nose in a book, and took no notice of the alterations of the sun and stars. But now, after the advent of George Washington and the American Revolution, I began to dream again. I strayed on the Common after school instead of hurrying home to read. I hung on fence rails, my pet book forgotten under my arm, and gazed off to the yellow-streaked February sunset, and beyond, and beyond. I was no longer the central figure of my dreams; the dry weeds in the lane crackled beneath the tread of Heroes.
What more could America give a child? Ah, much more! As I read how the patriots planned the Revolution, and the women gave their sons to die in battle, and the heroes led to victory, and the rejoicing people set up the Republic, it dawned on me gradually what was meant by _my country_. The people all desiring noble things, and striving for them together, defying their oppressors, giving their lives for each other,--all this it was that made _my country_. It was not a thing that I _understood_; I could not go home and tell Frieda about it, as I told her other things I learned at school. But I knew one could say “my country” and _feel_ it, as one felt “God” or “myself.” My teacher, my schoolmates, Miss Dillingham, George Washington himself, could not mean more than I when they said “my country,” after I had once felt it. For the Country was for all the Citizens, and _I was a citizen_. And when we stood up to sing “America,” I shouted the words with all my might. I was in very earnest proclaiming to the world my love for my new-found country.
“I love thy rocks and rills, Thy woods and templed hills.”
Boston Harbor, Crescent Beach, Chelsea Square,--all was hallowed ground to me. As the day approached when the school was to hold exercises in honor of Washington’s Birthday, the halls resounded at all hours with the strains of patriotic songs; and I, who was a model of the attentive pupil, more than once lost my place in the lesson as I strained to hear, through closed doors, some neighboring class rehearsing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” If the doors happened to open, and the chorus broke out unveiled,--
“O! say, does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?”
delicious tremors ran up and down my spine, and I was faint with suppressed enthusiasm.
Where had been my country until now? What flag had I loved? What heroes had I worshipped? The very names of these things had been unknown to me. Well I knew that Polotzk was not my country. It was _goluth_--exile. On many occasions in the year we prayed to God to lead us out of exile. The beautiful Passover service closed with the words, “Next year, may we be in Jerusalem.” On childish lips, indeed, those words were no conscious aspiration; we repeated the Hebrew syllables after our elders, but without their hope and longing. Still not a child among us was too young to feel in his own flesh the lash of the oppressor. We knew what it was to be Jews in exile, from the spiteful treatment we suffered at the hands of the smallest urchin who crossed himself; and thence we knew that Israel had good reason to pray for deliverance. But the story of the Exodus was not history to me in the sense that the story of the American Revolution was. It was more like a glorious myth, a belief in which had the effect of cutting me off from the actual world, by linking me with a world of phantoms. Those moments of exaltation which the contemplation of the Biblical past afforded us, allowing us to call ourselves the children of princes, served but to tinge with a more poignant sense of disinheritance the long humdrum stretches of our life. In very truth we were a people without a country. Surrounded by mocking foes and detractors, it was difficult for me to realize the persons of my people’s heroes or the events in which they moved. Except in moments of abstraction from the world around me, I scarcely understood that Jerusalem was an actual spot on the earth, where once the Kings of the Bible, real people, like my neighbors in Polotzk, ruled in puissant majesty. For the conditions of our civil life did not permit us to cultivate a spirit of nationalism. The freedom of worship that was grudgingly granted within the narrow limits of the Pale by no means included the right to set up openly any ideal of a Hebrew State, any hero other than the Czar. What we children picked up of our ancient political history was confused with the miraculous story of the Creation, with the supernatural legends and hazy associations of Bible lore. As to our future, we Jews in Polotzk had no national expectations; only a life-worn dreamer here and there hoped to die in Palestine. If Fetchke and I sang, with my father, first making sure of our audience, “Zion, Zion, Holy Zion, not forever is it lost,” we did not really picture to ourselves Judæa restored.
So it came to pass that we did not know what _my country_ could mean to a man. And as we had no country, so we had no flag to love. It was by no far-fetched symbolism that the banner of the House of Romanoff became the emblem of our latter-day bondage in our eyes. Even a child would know how to hate the flag that we were forced, on pain of severe penalties, to hoist above our housetops, in celebration of the advent of one of our oppressors. And as it was with country and flag, so it was with heroes of war. We hated the uniform of the soldier, to the last brass button. On the person of a Gentile, it was the symbol of tyranny; on the person of a Jew, it was the emblem of shame.
So a little Jewish girl in Polotzk was apt to grow up hungry-minded and empty-hearted; and if, still in her outreaching youth, she was set down in a land of outspoken patriotism, she was likely to love her new country with a great love, and to embrace its heroes in a great worship. Naturalization, with us Russian Jews, may mean more than the adoption of the immigrant by America. It may mean the adoption of America by the immigrant.
The Law Of The Fathers: A View Of The Declaration Of Independence
If I ask an American what is the fundamental American law, and he does not answer me promptly, “That which is contained in the Declaration of Independence,” I put him down for a poor citizen. He who is ignorant of the law is likely to disobey it. And there cannot be two minds about the position of the Declaration among our documents of State. What the Mosaic Law is to the Jews, the Declaration is to the American people. It affords us a starting-point in history and defines our mission among the nations. Without it, we should not differ greatly from other nations who achieved a constitutional form of government and various democratic institutions. What marks us out from other advanced nations is the origin of our liberties in one supreme act of political innovation, prompted by a conscious sense of the dignity of manhood. In other countries advances have been made by favor of hereditary rulers and aristocratic parliaments, each successive reform being gr
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