The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-03-23
Our Contemporary Ancestors.

Our Contemporary Ancestors.
It is a comfort to know that even
in these hnstling and devil-wagon-driv-
ing United States there are large
areas where the modern improvements
and depravations have not come. Uni
formity is monotonous. Machine-made
civilization is too prevalent. II IL a
curse or nuisance Of the modern world
that its citizens are altogether too much
alike. People dress alike, think alike,
talk alike, have the same little affecta-
tions. The native tang and original
accent, the smack Of the soil, are disap-
pearing. The villages are cities in mini
allure and dressed in borrowed robes.
No wonder folks like to travel to far
away corners and cubbyholes Of the
earth, to live among head-hunters and
cannibals. For novelty and the sake
of contrast, travellers will go far.
In this country, still almost unex-
plored by most of its own citizens, there
are some millions Of reasonably primitive
folk. Not 80 primitive as the Esquimaux.
the Apaches, the Nairs and other tribes
Of which NJ. REcLUs has written so en-
tertainingly, but primitive in COMPARE
son with the mass Of the American peo-
pie. OF little sets Of such primitive folk,
strange or simple, humble religious or
economic communities lingering on more
or less feebly we hear once in q while.
Reversions toward savagery in country
towns arc described in the magazines
or the daily press. A few novelists and
folk-lorists have staked their claims in
the richest American field for their pur-
poses, the Blue Ridge and Cumberland
Mountains.
Everywhere the mountaineers are
the true conservatives. Physical ge-
ography keeps them in what may be
called the backward class. They are re-
mote from the movement Of the world,
sufficient unto themselves. They have
air and freedom. For our own part, We
can't pity them because they do not en-
JOY the blessings of circulating libraries
and so on. They are the only philoso-
pliers. They have limited their wants.
They exist without those thousand and
one superfluities that are neoessaries
to most Of us. They speak the tongue
that SHAKESPEARE spoke. the old Bible
English Of the seventeenth century. II
they have a dialect. it Is a good one,
grown legitimately and with roots still
traceable in England, Ireland or Scot
land. For the opera. they have such
divine scraping Of catgut, such real old
American fiddling, as can be heard and
danced TO nowhere else. For theatres,
they have the age-long tragedy OF their
feuds. For the most part they inherit a
stern theology. Frightened by religious
emotion or emotional religion. Fierce
and gentle. suspicious and placable,
free from radical cant. hopelcssly or
nobly conservative, as We have said,
they are the blameless Ethiopians Of to-
day. For why should We blame them
il they have their own theories in regard
10 granddaughter and moonshine
whiskey' They are perfectly oompe-
tent 10 drink their own whiskey and
do their own manslaughter; and In their
prejudice against the United States
revenue officers they merely show
themselves N he extreme anti-Federal-
.sts. still true 10 the IDEAS which pro-
duoed the so-oalled Whisksy Insurrec-
tion ~ hundred and odd years ago.
We are reminded ~ these spirited and
original citizens by the address made
last week at a dinner ~ the Liberal Club
~ Buffalo by Dr. WILLIAM GooDkiA.
fhosf, presl,i.n, II Berea College. Ken
lucky DR. fEosrs collage is on Oh.
.aig. ~ th. great dis,rlc oocuplsd by
~ha, h. ~i,iily call. Oar Cont.npo-
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~. 'banlyafds II y states. . gyo counties.
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