East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1910-07-08
WHAT is AN AMERICAN

a spirited and timely article entitl-
ed What is an Amercan?" by War
rem Barton Blake, is one of several
novel features in the July Lippin-
colts.
Part of the difficulty in discover
ing just what an American Is, Is due
to the mixing process the poor fellow
had been put through" saws Mr.
Blake. 1T would be a simpler mat
ter to decide, what isn't an Ameri-
can?
In realizing our present day cos
mopolitanism, We forget how near this
cosmopolitanism comes to being our
tradition. Too often we think only
Of the British colonies when our CO.
lonial period is spoken of. Last sum-
mer's Champlain celebration escap-
ed utility in reminding us how mixed
our stock has been from the begin
ning-how nearly fortuitous the
English supremacy. Why be bullied
into eXaggerating our debt to the Is
land Home? 1t was Captain Basil
Hall who told our grandfathers that
England taught the Americans all
they have of thought, hitherto What
thoughts they have not learned from
England are foolish thoughts; what
words they nave not learned. un-
seemly words Ii is good to be re-
minded-either by an international
fete or by re-reading Crevecoeur's
Letters from the American Farmer
how much we do not owe to old
England. And it is reassuring, as we
contemplate the vast experiment that
goes on today, to know how we'll our
primitive experiments in race-mix-
iEgs succeeded. l like TO be remind
cd what good citizens of Philadelphia
were Benezet and stephen Girard;
and how justly New York honors her
Dutch heritabe. 'Ubi pans, ubi patria
quotes good st. John de Crevecoeur
who had married Yonkers girl nam
ed Mehitable Tippet, and titled a farm
! in Orange county, near the Jersey
! line. This Franco-Amercan paints
so dyllic picture that we positively
envy the settler his hardships The
| rich and the poor, ne says, are not
so far removed from each other as
they are in Europe; cultivators
| formity of decent habtations.' The
Farmer wrote before the age of Tene-
ment commissions.
yet in describing the Americans
complex materials, Crevecoeur was
modern enough; as modern as his
style could point out to YOU he
| writes, "a family whose grandfather
was an Englishman, whose wife was
! Dutch whose son married a French
woman and whose present four sons
have now four wives of different ma
tions. He is an American who, leav-
! ing behind him all his ancient prejud
ices and manners, receives new ones
from the new mode Of life he has EN-
braced, the new government ne obeys
and the new rank he holds. He be-
comes an American by being
melted into a new race of men, whose
labors and posterity will one day cause
great changes in the world. Ameri-
cans are the festern pilgrims, who are
| carrying along with them that great
mass of arts, sciences, vigor and in
dustry which began long since in the
east; they will finish the great circle
-. There is room for every
/ body in America.
I'VE cannot improve upon Crevec-
oeur today. If he generalizes pretty
| boldly. so do we. We're worried,
when We stop to think; but, on the
whole, we're proud. Aldrich, to be
| sure, sang of 'Unguarded Gates
and the motley throng that passes
! them:
Men from the volga and the Tartar
steppes,
Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho,
Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Kelt or
Slav,
Flying the Old Worlds poverty and
scorn,-
but we still like to think we can di-
gest the lump. And no one has
phrased better than Crevecoeur the
idealsm of the true American. They
say his book sent five hundred Nor
man families to Ohio-to perish there.
At least, the American Farmer never
represented his adopted country as
that French Pays de Cocagne, where,
by Franklin's account, the streets are
paved with half-baked loaves the
houses tiled with pancakes, and
fowls fly ready-roasted, crying, Come
eat met Whatever the American
may be- his is the chosen land of la
Dor; the land where hard work en-