The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1883-05-17
Colonialisn in the Unitad States,


In the wears which followed the close
of the war, it seemed as if colonialism
had been utterly extinguished. Unfort-
unately. this was not the case. The
multiplication of great fortunes, the
growth of class rich by Inheritance,
and the improvement in methods OF
travel and communication all intended
to carry great numbers of Americans
to Europe. The luxurious fancies which
were born of increased wealth, and the
intellectual tastes which were developed
by the advance of the higher education.
and TO which an old civilization offers
peculiar advantages and attractions,
combined to breed in many persons a
love of foreign life and foreign manners
These tendencies and opportunities have
revived the diving spirit of colonialism.
We see it most strongly in the leisure
class, which is gradually increasing in
this country. During the miserable as
tendency of the Second Empire, band
of these persons formed what was known
as the American colony" in Paris.
Perhaps they still exist; if so, their ex-
istence is now less fragrant and more
decent. When they were notorious they
presented the melancholy spectacle of
Americans admiring and aping the man
ners, habits, and vices of another nation.
when that nation was bent and corrupt
ed by the cheap, meretricious, and rot
ten system of the third Napoleon. They
furnished a very offensive example of
peculiarly mean colonialism. This par
ticular phase has departed, but the same
sort of Americans are, unfortunately
still common in Europe. do not mean,
of course, those persons who go abroad
TO buy social consideration, nor the
women who trade on their beauty or
wits to gain brief and dishonoring no.
toriety. These last are merely adven-
turers and adventuresses, who are COM
mon to all nations. The people refer
red to here form that large class, CON-
prising many excellent men and women,
no doubt, who pass their lives in Eu-
rope, mourning over the inferiority of
their own country, and who become
thoroughly denationaliZed. They do
not change into Frenchmen or English
men, but are simply disfgured and de-
formed Americans.
We find the same wretched habit of
thought in certain groups among the
rich and idle people of our great East
ern cities, especially in New York, be-
cause it is the metropolis. These groups
are for the most part made up of young
men, who despise everything American,
and admire everything English. They
talk and dress and walk and ride in Ger
tain ways, because the English do these
things in those ways. they hold their
own country IN contempt, and lament
the hard fate of their birth They try
to think that they form an aristocracy,
and become at once ludicrOus and des-
picable. The virtues which have made
the upper classes in England what they
are, and which take them into public
affairs, into literature and politics. are
forgotten. Angi0-Americans initiate
the vices or the loilies of their models,
and stop there. Ii all this were merely
passing fashion, an attack of Anglo
mania or of Gallo-mania, of which there
have been instances enough everywhere,
ii would be of no consequence. But it
IS recurrence of the old and deep
seated malady of colonial5m. It is a
lineal descendant of the old colonial
family. The features are somewhat dim
now, and the vitality is low, but there is
no mistaking the hereditary qualities.
The people who thus despise their own
land, and ape English manners, flatter
themselves with being cosmopolitans,
when in truth they are genuine colon
lists. petty and provincial to the last de-
gree.-He5ery CABOT Lodge IN Hay 1T
tdntic.