The sun., 1895-01-21
rHs sARD hMERTcAN.
sous Remarks o. wait whitusn's Tnhu-
enoe upon the Natieuhi Spirit

enoe URon the NAttonht Sptrtt
To ruE EpIroR OF THE suN-Sir: Your
trenchant lines respecting the need OF Amerl-
cans In public life. az in the Senate at Washing
ton, should arouse thought concerning the nceG
of recognising Americans in the Republic Of
Letters. For, while we can never overestimate
our debt 10 Old World literature, We are not to
underestimate obligations to our own. And yet
how few OF our literary critics seem TO recognize
this fact: so that while everything written after
the better models of the European standards IL
applauded, those works sprlnging from the
teeming life OF our Western civilization. and
after its likeness, often passed BY Of small
Importance.
1t is especially deplorable that American
editors do not moro generally use the great
vantage ground they have to call tho attention
Of the reading public TO such . bard, presmi-
nently American. as Walt Whitman. whose
whole life and writings are an incarnation OF
Democracy, and who constitutes what the future
historian will Judge the greatest contributor OF
this century to New World ideals and New
World letters.
In his Backward Glance Ger Travelled
Roads," appended to the only edition of his
Leaves of Grass" worthy the author. that
OF 1892, he vigorously asserts his Americanism
to be the explanation OF his poems. And GER
tainly no other man of this hemisphere had a
better right to assume to express the meaning
of this Western civilization than he. BY travels,
largely on foot, over the greater part Of our
broad domain: by familiar contact with all
sorts of people, and by his life of abandon to the
spirit Of social freedom and equality expressed
in our Constitution, but so often ignored In our
legislation, he absorbed the spirit and meaning
Of this country and caught the Western time
in his lines the Mississippi seems TO flow again,
voice OF native freedom nowhere else heard.
Whitman Is 50 vast contributor toward the
life and writings should be held up to view by the
press on all occasions; for the part that poetry
leading one: and we shall never come to feel to-
ward our country as do the more centralized
nations toward theirs. until by the o'sf power Of
song and verse. the meaning Of our history. our
institutions and our abounding life is islnterpreted
to us in the philosophical depth and aesthetic
beauty which poetry can alone furnish. Whit
man writes:
listed % neene OF Of nseTs S5 sa
from all Others and rgdly their own the land and
h as long e. "a the States - c3S1ns ont s e absorb and
Sie ss soS5 to s ae % asm
Is snd 80 long w hsy short of rscass nation
Nothing. truer has been written than this.
And no singer is moro able to teach us this
truth, and to inspire US with the loftiest mean
place in the opinion Of the next century will be
q most commanding one. as the one distinctively
American bard of our century, and worthy q
place with the greatest singers and heroes as
well OF any age or any cline.
II is because he Is so little read "a fact much
owing to prejud!ce) that he is so little priced.
And II the newspapers would occasionally print
some of his poems and place them before tho
eyes OF the youth OF the republic. 1t would do
much to create condition from which Ameri-
cans. either for private or public life. would
spring as naturally as our forests spring from
our American soil.
Let us hope that this may yet be done. and
that we may in this country see a growth of
singers whose Americansm of the Whitman
type will contribute to our national life much
that is now lacking.
listen in hope to this our own bard and prophet,
and with delight. as he thus invokes the spirit
OF real American song?
o my soft verse, my call. mock me not!
NOT Tor the bards OF the past not to invoke them
have launched you forth;
shores,
Have hung caprcious and loud my savage song
Bards foE my own land only invoke
Eor the war the war is over, the field is cleard.)
TIL they strike up marches, henceforth, triumphant
To cheer o mother. your boundess expcctapt soul.
- tons Nor the war, the Is over,
Yet bards OF latent armies million soldiers waiting
ever ready:
Bards with songs from burning Goals on the light
ningis fork'd stripes:
Ample ohios. Kanada,s bards: bards OF California,
inland bards; bards of the war,
You by my charm invoke.
May the response come and be recognized;
and ne who makes the call. the Good Gray
Poet, be reverenced by all who call themselves
Americans. Yours respectfully,
Rev. ARTHUR COPELAND.
SENECA FALLS, n. Y, Jan. 10.