New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1900-08-05
NAMING THIS COUNTRY.
AGITATION FOR COLUMBIA. AILEGHENIA.
APPALACHIA, VESPERIA, FREELAND.
FREDONIA AND CABOTIA.


From Professor Moses Colt Tyiers Chautauqua
address.
So great was the movement for the name Co
lumbIa that in 1871 the new Government set
apart a small domain on the Potomac for a Ma
uoHai capital anu IN giving speclai name 10
this particular district as the accepted residence
OF the National Government, not accidentally
but deslgnedly and significantly, called ii the
District Of Columbia; that is, the capital Of the
Nation. which was. il hoped, to be called
by that name. And all these efforts for the
adoption Of the name Columbia have been
Elected IL the fact that the map of our COun-
try, If you look over il and just count is now
fairly dotted and perforated with that word
one day looked to see no" many l could find,
and not only the great river which empties into
the Pacific. called ny Captain Gray of that ship
Columbia, but found the name applied to at
least eight counties eighteen townships, four
cities and seventeen villages in our country.
Ana Yet the most significant fact about this
carly movement for that name is with all the
early struggles for the word Columbia dur
ing the first twenty or thirty years of our indie
pendenCe, and notWit hstanding all the wise and
just Things that We're said in favor of it. the
word Columbia does not seem to become our
National name except in old fashioned wooden
poetry and IN patriotic oratory equally wooden.
The outside world. which in matters of this kind
refuses 70 be dictated 10. does not spontaneously
take TINS name CoIumhla upon its tongue in
speaking Of US and while We have been hesitat-
ing over the business the name Columbia has
been quietly and effeCtualiy appropriated by
South America, the United States of Colombia,
so that the name is no longer available for our
just swallowing down that little South American
republic, name and all.
WASHINGTON IRVING'S PREFERENCE
After these efforts on behalf Of the name
Columbia had become a failure. as was seen
be the good many years ago
a notable effort behalf of another National
name made. and this effort became rich
il proportion, berg fostered by our fascinating
prose writer. Washington Irving. Among other
things he said: We want d National name
We want it poetjcai ard we want il political
With the poetical necessity of the case | shall
not trouble I leave il for our poets to tell for
themselves how they manage 10 steer that colo
cation Of words. the United States of America
down the swelling tide of song and 10 float the
whole raft upon the Of heroic poesy. I am
now speaking Of the mere purposes of common
life How is citizen Of this Republic to desig-
nate himself, especially when he goes abroad?
| want my own peculiar name. l want an ap-
pellatior that shall tell at and in a way
not to be mistaken that l belong this very
portion Of America, geographically and politi-
cally. TO Which il is my pride and happiness
to belong. that I am Of the AngIO-SaXon race
which founded this Anglo Saxon empire in the
wilderness. (You see they then called it an
empire) Such an appellation would have
magic in it; il would bind every part together
keystone, it would be q passport to a
citizen Of the Republic throughout the world
This fifty or sixty years ago before
there much of the trans Mississippi country
populated We have much in our power"
said he, TO furnish ourselves with such a
National appeIlaJiOn from of the grand and
eternal features Of our country from that noble