The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1883-10-04
WALT WHITMAN on AMERICA.
rho Good Gray Poct's View Of our Pops
iutiOn nnd our Future.

Walt Whitman sent the following
letter to the managers OF tho tertio-
millennial celebration in Santa Fe, New
Mexico:
DEAR SIRs: Your kind invitation TO
visit you and deliver poem for tho
three hundred and thirty. third anniver-
srry of founding Santa Fe has reached
me so late that have to decline, with
sincere regret. But / will say q few
words off hand.
We Americans have yet to really
learn o,tr own nuteccdcnts and sort
them, to unity them. They will be
found ampler than has been supposed,
| and In widely different sources. Thus
far, impressed by New England writer's
and schoolmasters, we tacitly abandon
| ourselves to the notion that our United
States have been fashioned from the
| British Islands only, and essentially
form second England only-which is
Il very great mistake. Many leading
traits OF our future national personality,
and some of tho best ones, will certainly
prove to have originated from other
than British stock AS it is, British
| and Germans, valuable rs they aro in
the concrete, already threaten excess.
Or rather, I should say, they have
certainly reached that excess. To
lay something outside of them and
to counterbalance them is seriously
needed.
The secthing materialistic and bust.
'nss vortccs OF tho United States, in
heir present devouring relations, con-
;rolling and be'ittling everything else,
ire, in my opinion, but vast and in
!lspcdsablo stage In the New Worlds
Development md are certainly to be fol-
lowed by something entirely different,
1t least hy immense notifications. Char
'rtrr, literature, society worthy the
name, are yet to be established, through
| nationality Of noblcst spiritual, heroic
and democratic attributcs-not one of
which mt present definitely cxists-en-
tircly different from the past, though
| uncrringly founded OH it and to Justify
| it.
| TO that composite American identity
II the future Spanish character will sup
| ply some of the most needed parts. No
stock shows n graudcr historic retro
| Spcct--grander i'll righteousness and 10y
| Ilty, or for patriotism, courage, decerllm,
| gravity, and honor. 1t is time to dismiss
| utterly the illusion compound half raw
| hcad-and-hlOody-b bones and half Mys-
'eries-of- Udolpho, inherited from the
English writer's of the past 200 years.
| 1t is time to realize-for it is certainly
truc-that there will not be found any
more cruelty, tyranny, superstition, etc.
IN the resume of past Spanish history
than in the corresponding resume of An.
slo-Normnn history. Nay, L thinl;
there will not be found so much.
Then another point, relating to Amer
lean etbnology, past and to come, vii
here touch upon ut q venture. AS tt
our aboriginal or Indian population
the Aztec III the South and many n tribe
in the North and Vest know it seem,
to he agreed that they must gradual,
lwindle rs time rolls on, and in o few
generations moro leave only the rem
misccnce. blank. But am not n
all clear about that. Az America
from its many far-back sources and cur
rent supplies, developes, adapts, en
twines, faithfully Identifies its own, or
we to SEQ it cheerfully accepting an
using all tho contributions of foreig
lands from the whole outside globe, an
then rejecting the only ones distinctive
" its own-thc autochthonic ones?
AS to tho Spanish stock of our South
west, it is certain to me that we do nc
begin to appreciate the splendor nm
sterling value of its race element. VIII
knows but that element, like the course
some subterranean river, dipping invi:
IDLY for n hundred or two years, is no.
to emerge in broadest flow and permG
ncnt action ?
If I might assume to do so, woul
ike to send you the most corda
heartfelt congratulations of your Amer
ican fellow countrymen here You hav
more friends in the Northern and Atlar
tic regions than you suppose, and the
: are deeply interested in the developmer
Of the great Southwestern interior, nm
in what your festival would arouse
public attention. Very respectfully, etc
WALT WHITMAN.