Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1876-07-27
The London Chimes" on the
Celebration of Our INDIE
pendence.


The London Times of July 4, refer
ring to the celebration of our indie
pendence, says:
ono Nation ever offered the priv
lege of citizenship more literally, and
no Nation was ever rewarded with
such rich returns for its hospitality.
The especial glory of the growth of
the United States has been this, that
the Republic has grown because refu-
gees from all the rest of the world
have tiocked to its protection. Some
times they have fled from the cruel
conditions of Oyer-crOWded life at
home, the blame of which could be
laid at the door of no man or class of
men, since they were the necessary
consequences Of false ideas universally
acted upon as if they were true; some
times they fled from the tyrannies Of
CONSUMPTION and Of feudal law, which
kept them bound from the cradle to
the grave; sometimes they sought in
the West a liberty to obey the dictates
OF their own cOnSciences, denied by
prelates and governments Of the Euro
pean continent. 1t is justly a matter
of congratulation that great people
should have thus grown up. The
troops OF immigrants coming in year
after year, have traverSed the CONT
nent, plOWed the prairie, bridged the
mightieSt rivers, thrown railways over
and through mountains, and brought
from the hidden depths of the earth
those treasures of iron and coal which.
more than anything else, increase the
power of man to appropriate the gifts
Of nature to its use. Of silver and
gold we need not speak; the abundance
Of their production is comparatively
an insignificant accident. The 100
years that have passed have seen a
great industrial community developed
with uneXampled rapidity.
The United States have become a
great Nation in numbers and in the
production of wealth, and they have
shown themselves great also in the
capacity to free themselves at the cost
of much temporary suffering, from
the great evil of slavery, which was
so long interviewer in their existence.
The spectacle they present to the
world of a vast multitude of people
| peacefully producing food and cloth
ing, and ready to receive within their
ranks immigrants from all lands who
desire to join freedom is not unimpos-
ing. Although man does not live on
bread alone, bread is one of the neces-
saries of life, speaking broadly
and apart from special crises-in the
! United States bread may always be
obtained. If we are impatient that
the United States have as vet done so
little for the world beyond increasing
| the affiuence Of the means Of animal
existence, we may, perhaps, see cause
| to restrain our discomfort in thinking
of the materials out of which were
collected the armies of immigrants
! that have recruited the numbers of
their citizens. They have for the most
| part come from those classes of Eu-
rope whose whole lives are given up
to the daily struggle to obtain the
means of keeping alive. BY much
effort, by savings that may almost
| be said to have been stolen from neces-
sity, by resistance to temptation that
has often been heroic, the few neces-
sary pounds have been got together to
enable the emigrant to sail from Liver
pool or Bremen, from Cork or Ham
burg, to an Atlantic port, and he has
landed penniless to try his fortune in
another hemisphere. If the times are
fairly prosperous he gets employment,
and wages which prove to him that he
is indeed in a world which is new. The
strength of character which brought
| him out remains with him: he saves.
| he becomes a householder. house
owner, landed proprietor; but the
memory OF his own early struggles and
OF the struggles of his father before
him, does not pass away; and, if he
were asked to speak of the land of his
adoption, and could put his thoughts
! into words he would ALWAYS describe