News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-08-30
WALT WHITMAN on AMERICA.
The Good Gray Peers View OF our POpu.
IatiOG and our Future.

Walt Whitman sent the following
letter to the managers of the tertio-
millennial celebration in Santa Fe. New
Mexico:
DEAR SIRs: Your kind invitation to
visit you and deliver poem for the
three hundred and thirty third anniver-
sary of founding Santa Fe has reached
me so late that [ have to decline, with
sincere regret But I will say Il few
words off hand.
We Americans have vet to really
learn our own autecedents and sort
them, to unity them. They viii be
found ampler than has been supposed,
and in widely different sources. Thus
far, impressed by New England writer's
and schoolmasters, we tacitIy abandon
ourselves to the notion that our United
States have been fashioned from the
British Islands only, and essentially
form a second England only-which is
a very great mistake. Many leading
traits of our future national personality,
and some of the best ones, will certainly
prove to have originated from other
than British stock. As it is, British
and Germans, valuable as they are in
the concrete, already threaten excess.
Or rather, I should say, they have
certainly reached that excess. To
day something outside of them and
TO counterbalance them Is seriously
needed.
The seething materialistic and bust
ness worthless Of the United States, in
their present devouring relations, con-
trolling and beittling everything else,
are, in my opinion, but a vast and in
dispedsable stage in the New Worlds
development and are certainly to be fol-
lowed by something entirely different,
at least by immense notifications. Char
acter. literature, Il society worthy the
name, are yet to be established, through
a nationality of nOblest spiritual, heroic
and democratic attributes-not one of
which at present definitely exists-en-
tirely different from the past, though
unerringly founded on it and to justify
it.
To that composite American identity
of the future Spanish character will sup
ply some of the most needed parts. No
stock shows a gTander historic retro
spect-gTander in righteousness and 10y
atty, or for patriotism, courage, decerum,
gravity, and honor. 1t is time to dismiss
utterly the illusiOn-cOmpOund, half raw
head-and-blOody-bo and half Mys-
teries-of- Udolpho, inherited from the
English writers of the past 200 years.
1t Is time to realize-fOr it Is certainly
trUe-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
glO-Norman history. Nay. 1 think
there viii not be found So much.
Then another point, relating to Amer
lean etbuology, past and to come, [ will
here touch upon at a venture. As to
our aboriginal or Indian population
the Aztec ii the South and many a tribe
In the North and Vest know 1t seems
to be agreed that they must gradually
dwindIe as time rolls on, and IN a few
generations more leave only the rem
iniscence, a blank. But l am not at
all clear about that. As America,
from its many far-back sources and cur
rent supplies, develOpes, adaptS, en-
tvines, faithfully Identifies its own, are
we to see 1t cheerfully accepting and
using all the contributions Of foreign
lands from the whole outside globe, and
then rejecting the only ones distinctive
" its Own-the autochthouic ones ?
As to the Spanish stock of our South
west, it Is certain to me that We do not
begin to appreciate the spleudor and
sterling value of its race element. Who
knows but that clement, like the course of
some subterranean river, dipping invis-
IDLY for a hundred or two years, Is now
to emerge in broadcast flow and perma-
nent action
fl might assume to do so, would
like to send you the most cordial,
heartfelt congratulations of your Amer
lean fellow cOuntrymen here. You have
more friends in the Northern and Allan
tic regions than You suppose, and they
are deeply interestedin the development
of the great Southwestern interior, and
In what your festival would arouse to
public attention. Very respectfully, etc,
WALT WHITMAN.