Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-11-27
AN AMERICAN ON AMERICA.

An American of intelligence, who has
been abroad" told the people of Oakland
on Thursday what estimate he makes OF
this country and its people by comparison
with those he saw in Europe.
The chief points 10 which he draws at
tention are the geographical dignity OF our
country as it discloses itself to the Amer
lean when he is once away from 1t. This
is the experience of all American travellers;
we do not realize the magnificent expanse
of the empire of the Republic until we
find ourselves eribbed and confined by the
narrow area of European countries. So'
too, in respect to its present and prospect
i've population, the immensely of our coun-
try impresses one most when contemplated
from the distance of a small European
State.
We doubt the accuracy of the Judgment,
however, that we surpass all other nations
in the excellence of our mechanic arts.
We may have the best machinery and
most labor-saying tools, but it is scarcely
correct to say that we devote the care or
labor to productions of mechanical skill
that is given in the more advanced Eu-
ropean nations Certainly the American
does not demand such enduring works ; and
notably in the matters of building, OF
decoration, and of furnishing, we neither
expend nor finish with the patience or
elaborateness of the Europeans. Yet we
would by no means belittle our mechanical
achievements. Comparatively with the old
countries, this young one has surpassed
them in invention, and in the multitude
and novelty and usefulness of mechanical
appliances, and when our age is taken into
account, we have progressed immeasuraoiy
more than the most advanced Of the States
of Europe.
But if in architecture, rich adornment
and massiveness and costliness of the pro-
ducts of mechanic arts we do not yet out
do the older nations, 1t is gratifying to
learn from the essayist referred to, that
his observation confirms the oft-made
statement that we are physically superior
In average size and development, Ameri-
cans. he assures us are the superiors OF the
average of Europeans. And, as ne we'll
saws. this is a fact of tremendous signifi-
canoe in question of competitive civiliz-
ton.
As an offset, however, TO this cause for
pride, we are assured that the strong
drink habit is doing US more OF injury
than even our worst fears presage. The
European, by his bibulous habits is made
sodden, stupefed and idiotic. The Ameri-
can by his addiction to alcoholic stimu-
lants and by reason of his nervous temper
ament, and the haste with which he lives
is made delirious, frenzied and maniacal.
| The phlegmatic German, Swiss or Eng
lishman," says DR.. Mclean, " fills up as
does a sponge with wine or beer, and like
a sponge becomes heavy and soggy." But
the American infames his being with al
cohol. He makes the fires of life burn
briskly, but they burn out speedily. With
him strong drink is comparable to the
torch applied to tow. 3" 1t takes his for
eign progenitor forty or fifty years to Kill
himself-the typical American does 1t IN
four or five years" He concludes, as must
all who have given calm thought to the
subject, that the drink evil is far more
threatening to US than to Europeans. 1t
is certainly gigantic debaaching power
1t certainly saps the physical strength OF
our young men, and furnishes our mental
and moral escutcheons; it does more, it
threatens. if unchecked, to become so potent
a political factor as to endanger republican
institutions.
Unrestricted immigration is pointed out
by the essayist as an evil demanding our
immediate attention. That is to say, the
putting of the bit upon the license to visit
political plaques upon us in the form of
incendiary elements. 1t is true that we
are told by the philosophers in American
economies that our system can absorb and
neutralize all the communistic and an
archical elements that enter it. But as
that is a matter of experiment, the broader
wisdom would seem to be the prevention
of the injection of poisonous influences.
There are laws already intended to inter
pose between our civilization and the pau
per hordes of Europe who would become
public charges if landed here; laws also
that forbid the ingress of the lawless and
criminal classes; but they are not sufi
GENTLY broad or stringent, as this journal
has several times in the past three years
pointed out. The question Of the exclu-
sion of the criminal classes who come here
to SOW discord and overthrow American
institutions, is vastly different question
| from that under which it has been pro-
posed to wage intolerant opposition to all
immigration, or to array classes against
each other in this country, upon the basis
of nationality or faith. To shut the doors
upon Communists, Anarchists, assisted i'm
migrants and the incendiaries and con-
yicts of Europe, is proposition that meets
with little or no dissent in the United
States.
THE CITRUS FAIR.
The responses thus far received to the