New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1904-07-20
NORTHEAST SOUTHWEST.
Short Histories of Ne1O-Hampshire
and I'er0S.

LAR GOVERNMENT; BY Frank B. sanb oT1h
Series 'Houghton Mifhn & Co.
TEXAS. A CONTEST OF CIVILIZATIONS. BY
George p Garrison; l2mo. PIP V, 30 AInerlG cs
Commonwealth Series. Houghton. Mifiiln * 10
No better illustration of the diverse elements
and methods employed in the building up Of the
United States as IL exists to-day could be found
than In the stories of two almost antipodal
States which are here told in two recent volumes
of the American Commonwealth Series. The
methods employed by MIR. Sanborn and Profess
nor Garrison are similar which makes the com
rarison OF the growth and development or the
TWO States under diverse conditions the more
agreeable and satisfactory TO the student OF
American history I'm its widest significance In
Sew-Hampshire We have example OF the Tree
development OF a free people under almost lueai
conditions for the working out OF the prlhciPieS
OF democratic self-government As Mr.. sahDorh
states In his introduction, almost every questioh
with which men Of English and Irish ancestry
have had TO deal In five centuries during ther
long upward movement toward individual free
dom and orderly government OF the people Dy
the people has come up IN New-Hampshire for
settlement, and has been settled. not by olrec-
don from the monarch nor by concession from
the feudal lord or opulent aristocrat. but by
steady and reasonable pressure from below. en-
forced when needful by force of arms.
Local self-government land tenure by free own
srshin trial by unpacked juries, representation as
she concomtant Of taxation, Judges deciding by
Teason rather than 10y 2ul0Tiys Su resistance to
arbitrary power, and the quiet creation 81 seDie
80 Ten in ruir-these with their corollaries and
natural seQuels, have been won by the 1 sSp q,
those who won them in the other elghI counties "a
ahis American Switzerland.
Much more complex is the story OF Texas In
-,ofving as II docs chapters of the political his
4orv OF Spain and France and Mexico; the State
emerging first into history as the Territory
where Spanish and French expansion Tapped
and Spain prevailed, only 10 be secured from
Mexico by that resistless colonzing spirit OF
nation founded on colonization, whereof the end
IS not yet 1t the outgrowth or contest
between two colonizing forces. the Latin and
che Saxon. The colonizing instinct Of the Span
lard was perhaps strong as that OF the
Briton: the Spanish explorers were daring, ener-
,,etje ana persistent enough for any undertake
sng. but the conquistadOr was not backed up by
the settler, so that the officials could not or
yanize q compact political and social system
from the native material alone.
The ultimate explanation OF this lies at least
partly in the religious history of Spain The Eng
TisIns Of AmeTioa 10 conformity at home BIT
popular motive TO emigration; and had il been
otherwise. the Spanish hereto would have been
ciuded from the settlements of his countrymen in
America. just the Huguenot was from those of
France.
The spread Of revolutionary ideas in Mexico
and the separation from Spain gave a new i'm
pulse and different direction TO the national
life. but the Spanish element in Mexican civili-
cation was not essentially reduced until the
coming OF the Anglo-Saxon. The Spanish in
huence has left ineffaceable marks. not on the
Texan character, perhaps, but certainly on the
institutions OF Texas. Professor Garrison in
cludes IN his accounting for the results as they
stand to-day all the peculiar social forces that
have helped TO determine the life of the prov
ince, Of the republic and Of the State.