The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1897-04-08
Some Rambling Thoughts,


Our country is so vast, and its range
of products and of climatic conditions
so extraordinary, that the greatest
safeguard up to this time against a
fatal sectionalism has been the ten
dency of both early and late immi-
grants to move from one place to
another, subjugating new territory,
| and forming new states. Nature de-
crees that the material interests of
Montana, for instance, shall differ
| from those of the sea-bOard states,
but the travelled condition of many
! thousands of Montanians guarantees
an expression of opinion on their part
regarding public affairs, distinctly
more national than could be expected
from a population narrowed to views
purely local. For small nation, re-
| stricted in both space and possibilities
great patriotic results may come from
! inhabitants who do not choose to
wander; but for us, not crowded by
neighbors, nor measured in any di-
rectiOn by less than ten hundred miles
| the best promise of endurance if found
in increasing knowledge of one
another's needs and problems.
~
We have been subjected to such a
tremendous influx Of foreigners and
children Of foreigners, in the past
thirty years, that we easily find an
other great gain from the restlessness
of our mixed population. Notwith-
standing the fact that the inhabitants
of some European nations have come
here by hundreds of thousands it is
| impossible to place the finger on any
one portion of our country and say
Here public questions are entirely
settled by voters who are more foreign
than Americans in their ideas" Re
garding our country as one great body
it is safe to assert that no condition
except this one of mixing, would have
enabled this one to digest and safely
dispose of the millions who have come
to it from every nation under Heaven.
While there is still much to be desired
in the direction of unity, nationally
we have accomplished Il task that
might well have been regarded as i'm
possible; the quiet orderly, practically
complete ABSORPTION of over three
times as many immigrants as there
were inhabitants at the birth of the
United States. Each Wanderer has
come promptly in touch with persons
who cherished the spirit of Freedom
and has become so imbued himself
that we are still one Union; INSOFAR
able forever, let us hope and believe.
80
In Yorkshire CEnglandD it is com
paratively rare thing to find q man
whose sons are scattered through the
other counties; let us say, for illustra-
ton, in Kent, Cornwall, and Northum-
berland; but of our old American
families, both rich and poor, there are
thousands, conditioned like an editor
of my acquaintance, whose blood rela-
tons are spread from Vermont to
California, and down to Louisiana.
The unconscious influence of such
connections works upon the magma
ton OF the child so situated-they are
legion-until its fervid fancy over
leaps the farm fences, the valley walls,
the rolling prairies, the beetling
mountain-sides and the country be
comes My Country" to him in a
much wider sense than with the child
whose relations are grouped close
around him.
W.
But we have by no means exhausted
the advantages that have arisen from
our restless spirit. Among other