The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-04-27

and on the headwaters of the Rio Grande; and the French, who at al- most the same time were struggling up the St. Lawrence, were likewise des- tined to form permanent settlements on the Great Lakes and in the valley of the mighty Mississippi before the people of English stock went westward of the Alleghenies. Moreover, both the Dutch and the Swedes were shortly to found colonies between the two sets of English colonies, those that grew up around the Potomac and those that grew up on what is now the New Eng land coast Nevertheless, this landing at Jamestown possesses for us of the United States an altogether peculiar significance and this without regard to our several origins. The men who land- ed at Jamestown and those who, thir- teen years later, landed at Plymouth, all of English stock, and their fellow settlers who during the next few de- cades streamed in after them, were those who took the lead in shaping the life history of this people in the colonial and revolutionary days. It was they who bent into definite shape our nation while 1t was still young enough most easily most readily, t, 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 left deeper than all other upon our national life the mark of its strong twin individ- ualities, the mark of the cavalier and of the Purltan-neverthe this stock not only from it's environment but also from the presence with it of other stocks, almost from the beginning be- gan to be differentiated strongly from any European people. As I have al- ready said, about the time the first English settlers landed here, the Frenchman and the Spaniard, the Swede and the Dutchman, also came hither as permanent dwellers, who left their seed behind them to help shape and partially to inherit our national life, The German, the Irishman and the Scotchman came later, but still in colo nial times, Before the outbreak of the Revolution the American people, not not only because of their surroundings, physical and spiritual, but because of the mixture of blood thas had already begun to take place, represented a new and different ethnic type. This type has never been fixed in blood All through the colonial days new waves of immigration from tim etc time swept hither across the ocean, now from one country, now from another. The same thing has gone on ever since our birth as nation; and for the last sixty years the tide cf Immigration has been at the full. The new corners are soon absorb ed in our eager national life, and are radically 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 growtht and development have gone on steadily, generation by generation throughout three centuries.
 The pioneers of our people who first landed on these shores on that eventful day three centuries ago, had before them a task which during the early years was of heartbreaking danger and difficulty. The conquest of new con- tinent Is iron work. People who dwell in old civilizations and find that there in so much of humanity's lot is hard, are apt to complain against the condi- tons as being solely due to man and to speak as if life could be made easy and simple If there were but a virgin continent in which to work It is true that the pioneer life was simpler, but it was certainly not easier As a mat ter of fact, the first work of the pion- eers in taking possession of lonely wilderness is so rough, so hard, so dan gerous that all but the strongest spir- it's fail The early iron days of such a conquest search out alike the weak in body and the weak in soul. In the war fare against the ruggest sternness of primeval nature, only those can con- quer who are themselves unconquer- able. It is not until the first bitter years have passed that the life be- comes easy enough to invite mass of newcomers, and so great are the risk, hardship and toll of the early years that there always exists a threat of lapslng back from civilization.
 The history of the pioneers of James, town, of the founders of Virginia, illus trates the truth of all this. Famine and pestilence and war menaced the little band of daring men who had planted themselves alone on the edge of 8 frowning continent. Moreover, as men ever find, whether in the tiniest frontier community or in the vastest and most highly organized and com plex civilized society their worst foes were in their own bosoms, Dissension distrust the inability of some to work and the unwillingness of others, jeal- ousy, arrogance and envy, folly and la- ziness-in short, all the shortcomings with which we have to grapple now were faced by those pioneers, and al moments threatened their whole enter prise with absolute ruin. It was some time before the ground on which they had landed supported them, in spite ot It's potential fertility, and they looked across the sea for supplies, At one moment so hopeless did they become that the whole colony embarked, and was only saved from abandoning the country by the opportune arrival oi help from abroad.
 At last they took root in the land
 and were already prospering when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. In few
 years a great inflow of settlers began Four of the present states of New Eng. land were founded. Virginia waxed apace. The Carolinas grew up to the