The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1909-09-25
WHAT A|LS NEW ENGLAND? ASKS A
WRITER IN A LEADING MAGAZINE
The Boston Republic Answers the Question Interesting Article
and Shows the Struggle For Two Score Years Between the
Transpanted Saxon and the Transanted Ce the Land Of
the PILGRIMS and Purtans.

He would be poor American who,
wherever dwelling in the United States,
, would deny New England's immense
share in the foundation of our civil
liberties. Here was planted the seed Of
, Home Rule in the town meeting, 81
though that was but q revival OF the
old Catholic Saxon Wapcrlake. Here
was the revolt against even the least
taxation without Representations; here
the Boston Massacre, in which Eng
lish, Irish and African blood mingled:
here the famous Boston Tea Party"
nearby, at Lexington. the farmers fired
the shot heard around the world"
within Bostons borders stands Bunker
Hill; at Cambridge Washington set
his face against religious intolerance
in his stern prohibition of Pope Day"
in the Continental Army, says the
Boston Republic of Sept IL.
/ New England gave us our first great
school OF American literature in the
poet and prose writer's who We're the
glory of SO many decades of the Nine
, teenth Century; whose works endure,
and will be for all time the American
classics.
Here, arose many Of our greatest
orators, statesmen. and philanthropists
as Daniel Webster. Wendell Phillips
William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Sum-
ner. Here was the home of the aboli-
ton movement; here the nursery Of
great teachers and the experiment sta
But there was flaw in the sectional
life. It's geographical position made
for isolation. II represented the old :
est settlements in the original thirteen
colonies; and it had a stable civ LIZA
ton when the great west Of today was
almost an unchartered wilderness.
English in the dominant strain of
blood, it kept the English insu!arity,
and contempt Of other races. First,
it passed by. with lofty Indifference,
the little groups Of later Corners. Then,
when una ware. these had Increased and
multiplied into a formidable host, it
turned fiercely to crush and rend, for
getting that the predecessors Of these
had once been strangers and exiles on
the same soil, and doubtless not less
distasteful to the aborigines, our only
unmixed Americana.
The history of New England since
the 30's has been mainly that Of a
struggle, noisy or quiet, between the
transplanted Saxon and the trans
planted Celt. In the effort to prevent
the latter from attaining his full de-
velopment, the. common progress has
suffered. What Ais New England 2"
asks Edward Vallandigham, in the cur
rent Putnam's Magazine. Taking up
| the habit Of the New Englanders Of the
older stock-we cannot admit with this
writer that they have especial claim
to the name Of ''native"-of charging
their ills, social and political, to unre-
stricted foreign immigration: he de-
clares that mot the stranger gained,
but the native lost. seems the key to
the situation" Touching lightly on the
migration Of New Englanders to other
parts of the country, central and vest
ern New York. Ohio. Illinois, Michigan.
(! Wisconsin, Iowa, etc. he continues:
Had the emisrant New Highlander
stayed at home, we should have heard
little Of the immigration problem, for
the natives would not have been left
in a minority, and they might have
been more plant and sympathetic
Now, New England, once proud to De
called the refuge for the oppressed OF
all nations has at length proved a
churlish hostess to her alien guests"
Several false assumptions underlis
the paragraph. just quoted; perhaps
the strangest Of which il that New
Englands welcome to the alien" I'M
less. indeed. he happened to he Of the
prevailing religion. was ever aught but
a Fourth Of July figure of speech
While no one is so foolish as to deny
that English blood predominated in the
foundation Of Massachusetts, yet. az
+, Herbert N. Casson said, writing few
years ago. on THE Irish in America.
o BE-