The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-09-15

stand still without making any part of the
history of civilization for the last three or
four thousand years-the civilized nations
of the earth have always been reaching out
to the westward.
The musty old history books say that
the three civilized races of the world-the
three races that have made the history of
the world-were once one people. and
lived together somewhere in Western Asia.
When these races began their "going
west one of them, the Hamitic, became
the Egyptian and Chaldean people, and
have always kept themselves apart.
Another race, the Semitic, has given the
world its three great religions-the Jewish,
the Christian and the Mohammedan.
The third race, the Aryan, is our own,
and the race that has been the planter OF
new nations.
"First the glory that was Greece" then
"the grandeur that was Rome; then Italy,
France, Germany, England and finally our
own America. These are the nations that
have risen, because the Aryan race, the
race OF progress, has been always obeying
the law which plenty of people have be-
lieved originated with Horace Greeley,
when he said go West, young manp'
The barbarians from Northern Europe
and the polished Latins, descendants of
the Greeks, went west together. England
took the language and customs of the bar
barians, while France and Spain took the
religion of the Romans.
Long afterward Columbus felt the in
evitable longing to go west. Because he
had that longing SO deeply impressed
upon his nature that he made great
efforts and endured many hardships to
crafty it Columbus became hero to all
the world. But, after all, what did he
more than young man who told me of
n
a natural feeling, Unborn in every breast?
II came just as far West as I could !"
said he, "and then | waded out into the
water up to my waist and fired my gun
straight toward the setting sunI'
| People always think they have per-
fectly sound reason for following out their
destiny. The Pilgrim Fathers and tn Q
Huguenots fed from the people of their
| own race to escape religious persecution
| 1t seemed to them safer to go among saw
| ages who lived in freezing and forbidding
| land than to yield gracefully some trifling
! details of their religious ceremonies to the
| opinions of their kings and their neigh
bors. New England was good place to
emigrate from, and if our hard-headed an
cest3rs had left it for the sunny South who
would have wondered? But the flower
scented forests of the South called all in
vain to the Puritans. Perhaps they
thought happiness would be sin, and the
| hardest path to follow would lead to the
| richest reward Perhaps, and this really
seems to me the most likely reason, they
were only fulfilling the destiny that Ten
nyson' hints at when he sings:
Through the Ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widened with the
process Of the suns.
Whatever the reason may be our own
people have always been pushing toward
the sunset. In New England men and
women gave the best part of their lives to
laying low the forests, to planting fields
and orchards, to Harvesting the streams
for mill-power. They labored nightly to
build themselves houses of logs. They
suffered and waited for the fruits OF their
toll. And very likely when the fruit was
ripe the time of their going was ripe too.
Some journeyed TO Pennsylvania, some to
Ohio. There they struggled again to make
clearing in the forest, to grow a little
grain, to build a house of logs. And many
families deserted these new homes again,
pressing always farther west.
| wonder if they felt as did bright
faced woman who lived nine miles from
neighbors. high up in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains. tits gitten' most too thick
settled hereabouts,' was her complaint.
Folks is goin' and comm through the
hills all summer long. We'uns wants to
go back into Arizony."
Does any one suppose that the children
didn't play an important part in all this