Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-04-22
OUR PRESENT CONDITION IND RE
SPONSIBILITIES.

.
The closing part of the Grafton Of George VIII
liam Curtis at Concord, touches upon the present
condition of our country and the responsibilities
of the American people. 1t is worthy Of attentive
perusal, and is As follows:
TIE NEW NATION.
At the end of . century we can see the work Of
this day q our fathers could not We can see that
then the final movement began Of process long
and unconsciously preparing. which was to intrust
Liberty to new forms and institutions that seemed
full of happy promise for mankind. And now for
nearly century what was formerly called the ex-
pertinent of representative republic of imperial
extent and power has been tried. Has it fulfilled
the hopes Of its founders and the just expectations
Of mankind! l have already glanced at its early
and fortunate conditions, and we know how vast
and splendid were its early growth and develop
ment. Our materials statistic soon dazzled the
world. Europe no longer sneered, but gazed in
wonder, waiting and watching; Our population
ten years. Every little stream among the hills
turned . mill and the great inland seas, bound by
the genius Of Clinton to the ocean, became the
highway of boundless commerce, the path Of I'M
precedented empire. Our farms were the granary
Of other lands. Our cotton fields made England
rich. Still we chased the whale in the Pacific
Ocean and took fish in the tumbling seas of Lab
rador. We hung out friendly lights along thou
sands Of miles Of coast to tempt the trade of every
CllWe anu Wherever Oh tue uiui VI Tue RIODc
there was . harbor, it was white with American
sails. Meanwhile ut home the political foreboding
of federalism had died away, and its very wall
seemed tribute to the pacific glories of the land.
'The ornament of beauty is Suspect,
A crow that flies in heavens eetest air.
The government was felt to be but hand of Pro-
lection and blessing; labor was fully employed;
prise was pushing through the Alleghanies, grasp
ing and settling the Ell Dorado of the prairies, and
still Drawing the wilderness, reached out toward
the Rocky Mountains, and reversing the voyages
Of Columbus, rediscovered the old world from the
new. America was the Benjamin of nations. the
bsstbeloved of heaven, and the starry flag of the
United States flashed line Of celestial light
around the world, the harbinger of freedom, peace,
and prosperity.
Such was the vision and the exulting faith Of
fifty years ago. atlantis hath risen from the
ocean," cried Edward Everett to appla uding IIar-
ward and Daniel Webster answered from Bunker
Hill, IF we fail, popular governments are impos-
sble." So far IS they could see, they stood among
the unchanged conditions of the early republic
And those conditions are familiar. The men who
founded the republic were few in number, planted
chiefly along temperate coast, remote from the
world. They were homogeneous people, increas-
ing BY their own multiplication. speaking the same
language, Of the same general religious faith,
cherishing the same historic and political tradi-
lions, universally educated, hardy, thrifty, with
general equality Of fortune, and long and nteli
gent practice Of self governmeni, while the slavery
that existed among them, inhuman in itself, was
not seriously defended, and believed to be dis
appearing. Bat within the last half century
causes then latent, wholly incalculable before,
have radically changed those conditions, and we
enter upon the second century Of the republic
with responsibilities which neither our fathers nor
the men OF fifty years ago could possibly foresee.
CHANGES AND DANGERS.
Think. for instance, Of the changes wrought by
foreign immigration, with all its necessary conse-
quences. In the State Of Massachusetts, to-day the
number Of citizens Of foreign birth who have no
traditional association with the story of Conc ord
and Lexington is larger than the entire population
Of the State on the day of battle. The first fifty
years after the battle brought TO the whole coun-
try fewer immigrants than are now living in Mas
sachusets alone. At the end of that half century,
when Mr.. Everett stood here, less than three hun
dred thousand foreign immigrants had come to
this country, but in the fifty years tia. have since
elapsed that immigration has been more than nine
millions of persons. The aggregate population in
the last fifteen years has advanced somewhat more
thaA threefold the foreign immigration more than
thirtyfold 70 that now immigrants and children OF
immigrants ere quarter OF the whole population.
This enormous influx of foreigners has added an
immense ignorance and entire unfamiliariiy with
republican ideas and habits to the voting class 1t
has brought other political traditions, other Ian
guAges, and other religious faiths. 1t has intro
auced powerful and organized influences not friend
yto the republican principle Of freedom of thought
and action. 1t is to the change produced by imni-
grafton that we owe the first serious questioning
Of the public school system, which was the nursery
Of the early republic, and which is to-day the pal
ladium Of free popular government
Do not misunderstood me. am not lameuting
even in thought the boundless hospitality Of Amer
CO. do not forget that the whole European race
came hither but yesterday, and has been dome sti-
Gated here mot yet three hundred years. am not
inssnsibe Of the proud claim Of America to be the
refuge Of the oppressed of every cline, nor do /
doubt in her maturity her power, if duly directed
70 assmilate whole nations, if need be, as in her
infancy she achieved her independence, and in hei
prime ma ntaiped her unity. But if she had been
he hops Of the world and is SO STILL it is because
she has understood both the conditions and the
perils Of freedom, and watches carefully the