The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1907-05-02
BY President in Address at
Jamestown Exposition.
OUR HISTORY is TRACED
Mighty Task of Americas Early Set
tiers is Graphically Set Forth.
Virginia's Fight for Life
Recounted.

dress at the jamestown exposition by
extending cordial greetings to the
representatives of foreign countries
present, showing Americas intimate
connection w:Ga practically every ma
tion and race on the globe, and also
making a plea for universal peace.
Along this line he said:
I'VE have met today to celebrate
the opening of the exposition, which
itself commentaries the first perma.
nent settlement Of men of our stock
in Virginia, the first beginning of
what has since become this mighty
republic:
Three hundred years ago handful
Of English adventures, who had
crossed the ocean in what we should
now call cockleboats, as clumsy as
they were frail, landed in the great
wooded wilderness, the Indian-haunted
waste, which then stretched down to
the waters edge along the entire At.
lantic coast.
They were net the first men OF
European race to settle in what is
now the United States, for there were
already Spanish settlements in. Flor
ida and on the headwaters of the
Rio Grande; and the French, who at
almost the same time were strug-
Cling up the st. Lawrence, were like
wise destined to form permanent set
Elements on the great lakes and in
the valley of the mighty Mississippi
before the people of English stock
Went westward OF the Al:eghenies
moreover, both the Dutch and the
SWedes were shortly to found colonies
those that grew up around the Poto.
mac, and those that grew up on what
is now the New England coast. Never
theless, this landing at jamestown
possesses for US Of the United States
an altogether peculiar significance and
this without regard to our several orr
gins,
The men who landed at jamestown
and those who, thirteen years later.
landed at Plymouth, all of English
stock, and their. fellow-settlers who
during the next few decades streamed
IN after them, were those who took
the lead in shaping the life history
OF this people in the colonial and
revolutionary days. 1t was they who
bent into definite shape our nation
While it was still young enough most
easily, most readily, to take on the
characteristics which were to become
part OF its permanent life habit.
"Yet let US remember that while
this early English colonial stock has
lett deeper than all others upon our
national life the mark of it's strong
twin individualities, the mark of the
Cavalier and of the Puritan-never-
theless this stock, not only from it's
environment, but also from the pres.
ence with it of other stocks, almost
from the beginning, began to be diff
ferentiated strongly from an Europe
an people. As l have already said,:
about the time the first English set
tiers landed here, the Frenchman and
the Spaniard, the Swede and the the
Ducthma2, also came hither as per-
manent dwellers, who left their seed
TO inherit our national life. The Ger
man, the Irishman, and the Scotch
man came later, but still in colonial
times.
"Ali through the colonial days new
waves Of immigration from time to
time swept hither across the ocean,
now from one country, now from an
other. The same thing has gone O,
ever since our birth as a nation; and
for the last sixty years the tide of
immigration has been at the full. The
newcomers are soon absorbed i:1o
our eager national life, and are rad.
ically and profoundly changed there
by, the rapidity of their assimilation
being marvellous. But each group Of
newcomers, as it adds its blood to the
life, also changes it somewhat, and
this change and growth and develop
ment have gone on steadily. genera.
ton by generation, throughout three
centuries
He dwelt at length on the enormous
nature of the task which the first set
tiers of America faced when they set
foot on our shores. Especially, said
he, was this the case with the pio-
ner settlers at jamestown, who were
from the start menaced by famine,
pestilence and war. He went on to
show that other portions of America
were not settled until after the James
town pioneers had begun to prosper.
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