Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-11-17
ULTIMATE AMERICA"
Rev. A. j. HOugh Is a Cheerful
Optimist

when He Looks at the Nations Future
---HIs Paper before the Professional
Club Monday Evening.
The opening meeting of the Professional
club for the present season was held at the
Brooks House Monday evening, when Rev.
A. j. Hough gave the paper on "Ultimate
America" To know thoroughly what we
are, the essayist said, will indicate more or
less clearly what we may be. This years
American wheat crop began with three
kernels planted in the right place. The
quality is the same but there is more
of it. whatsoever nation soweth that
will she also reap" What we are as ma
tion can be traced more or less directly to
two historical forces, with which no other
may be compared in their influence upon
the national life-the Puritan and the
Quaker. The strength of the one was the
confession of an invisible presence, right
eous and eternal will which would estab-
lish righteousness in the earth. The
strength of the other was the witness in
the human spirit to an eternal truth, and
all other voices were silent before this
Ultimate America, threshed out and win
moved, will be the product of these two
kernels of wheat.
There is room for the growth of a har-
vest. The six expansive movements, from
the Louisiana purchase to the addition of
Alaska, give almost bewldering scope for
the play of forces necessary to the growing
life of a mighty people When we remem-
Der that the entire living population OF the
globe, fourteen hundred millions, divided
into families of five persons each, could be
located in Texas, each family having a
houselot of half an acre, and then leave
more than seventy millions of houseots
untaken, the question of room is not like
ly to become an embarrassing problem in
the very near future. The fact that this
vast domain is to remain the abode of one
nation assures the future, and removes the
element of uncertainty which atllcts Eu-
rope, cut up as it is into twenty realms,
and the possibility OF an upheaval and a
readjustment of boundaries always pres
ent Steam and electricity eliminate an
element of weakness and source of dan
ger which would otherwise be inseparable
from so vast an area. Gail Hamilton has
suggested that if there were to be no rail
roads it was on the whole rather an i'm
pertinence in Columbus to discover Amer
lea. As it is, a commanding word spoken
anywhere is heard everywhere. An illum-
ating thought is ditfused like sunlight
through the whole mental structure of the
nation. The East and the West are be-
coming nearer neighbors than were Yer
mont and New Hampshire 70 years ago.
Nations of the old world have failed of
their mission and decayed because of ar
rested or deformed development. Repres-
sion has dwarfed and weakened their vital
forces That mistake in nation building
will not be repeated here, where the plant
ing of a nation is like taking from a vase
an oak with its cramped roots and setting
it in its native soil with unrestrained free
dom for its growth. Instead of progress
by revolution, which has been the method
of Europe, we have here progress by evolu-
ton.
Whether the people are competent for
self-government will have much to do with
moulding the form of Ultimate America.
But the way in which the ship of state
rights itself in every storm, the sudden up
rising of the people on the side of right
in every great emergency, deaf to party
council, blind to the veal of factions,
gives steadily increasing confidence for the
future The simplest name for the Amer
lean method is government by public opin-
ion, which is here given the opportunity
which it has never had before. The news
paper parties, legislatures, are simply an
expression of this opinion, not the pro-
ducers of ii. 1t will listen earnestly to
argument and persuasion, and then silent
ly 90 its way and render its verdict, like a
jury, unintluenced by court or counsel.
Another assurance of the nations future
is that she has never separated the law of
self-sacrifce from that of self-pIeservatOn.
She has deliberately counted the cost of
moral movement and has never quibbled
when the price was death. Because the
blood of sacrifice is on her doorpost the
vision of Canaan is in her eyes.
! The essayist did not entertain the wide
ly prevalent fear that the 1oodtde of i'm
; migration would modify or weaken the de-
teImining qualities of the nations life.
The solvent power of American institu-
tons and ideas is amazing. Their power
2 of assimilation is greater than any tax that
has been or will be put upon them. The
product of the whole influx of foreign life
and blood will be simply American citizen
4 ship. a prime factor in producing this re-
suit is the sweet and sunny home life.
Home building is death to anarchy and
discord. When man owns his house he
= becomes at once believer in protection
and in law, for he needs both. OuI
schools and universities, our current liter
AZURE, our marvellous development of in.
ventive genius, were cited as other leading
factors. The nation has hitherto beer
gathering and mastering material and con
< structng mechanical appliances that ouI
hands may be released from manual labor
:. Now she will think, and muscle will be
5 come the servant of mind.
. Ultimate America is not to be carved
e out with the point of the sword. THAI
/ style of national architecture cannot be
= domiciled here. Nor will it come out OF
any testing fire in the form of colder
2 calf. Ultimate America will be the tr
umphant enforcement of intellectual anC
moral power, making the place of theil
feet glorious throughout one vast cont
e nent. The Puritan and the Quaker will
5 reappear. The two kernels of wheat are
d yet to be heard from in the reign of right
eOusness and peace, and the field is already
white unto the harvest.
The one threatening danger which the
- essayist saw and recognized was that Of
y mutilated life and manhood, destroying i'll
own life, and threatening that of the com
munity. In whatever form this mutiateC
manhood Representatives. it be strons
/; drink, immortality, idleness, reckless living
n lawlessness, irreyerence-it puts the ma
e ton in perl. 1t is like the broken vince
J. on the car that tears up the track anC
- hurls the train into ruin. Out of th
grows the greatest question of the nation
tOIaU I lias 10 vi al N