Norwich bulletin., 1922-08-11
PRESERVING THE OLD AMERICAN TRAITS

carbuncles. Few of them have any
 longer a really representative govern
 mert still fewer have really good gov ernments They are mostly ruled by rings and combinations which are able to control majority votes only by dena-
 gogic pandering to the ignorance, clan nishness and incapacity for self-govern- ment of a, majority of the voters. New. York city IS but the most glaring exam pie of what is widespread among our.
 cities Why this should be so. our cen sus figures make clear.
 It is not necessary to assume that for eigners are all or mostly all bad people. It is not necessary to assume that na- tive Americans are inherently, any more virtuous. But it would be flying in the fact of facts as universally pat ent as the sunlight. to deny that they are different Heredity, environment, l education all combine to produce diff 1 ference which distinguishes them even
 more radically than any mere difference
 in language. It is not partisanship or bigotry to admit this much.
 i There are certain things which, in the
 course of generations, have come to be
 regarded as American characteristics. It
 would be rash writer who should un-
 dertake to make hard-snd-fast list of them But among them are such things | as Thrift Industry Ambition, Foresight. | Reasonableness. Individualisrn, Perse- | verance, and Patriotism. Not all native Americans possess all these characteris- tics. Very few foreigners but have some
 of them. It would be impossible to
 draw any exact line among them and staple 1t to them like a wire fence, or
 one side of which should be arrayed
 Americans and on the other side for eigners. But in larger and admitted , ly vaguer way, it>ean be said that the traits I have mentioned are generally l admired and generally desired as Amer. iean traits.
 Thrift, for example. From farther back than the days of Ben Franklin
 this has been a trait which American
 parents have sought to exhibit in theil own lives and to instiIl into the training of their children. Yet, outside of tn, rural districts. thrift is today a prac tically unknown characteristic of Amer ican life Bearing in mind that thrift i as far removed from stinginess on tn one side as from extravagance on tn 5 other-that # means simply a reasoned
 economy of money, time, labor and al
 abhorrence of all waste-where vii n you go to lock for it Along city bo1le e yards? Among city tenements? Or vii : you make a bee-lne for the distan . hills and the rural backroads?
 Industry, for another example. " e all of us work and most of us wori Q hard, whether native-born or foreign e horn whether city residents or country dwellers. But is there no-difference be
 tween the industry which is directed to - ward growth and accomplishment, an 2 the industry which has to be called b q the factory bell and must punch it's wa : in and out on a time-clock
 Ambition. for another example. I {. the old America boys and young me
 exercised both industry and thrift
 lowly and arduous beginnings becaus
 thereby they felt they were building
 1 ladder which should, round by rount
 lift them to higher and better thing
 The lad who split rails behind a back . woods cabin or drove mules along
 canal towpath or tended bobbins in
 factory had no idea of holding dow i such jobs all their lives They were dis A contented; yes. But their disconte1 , didn't take the form of strikes or 'pre letarian organizations. They woul '' have turned away In disgust, as thei :. descendants do today, from any attemI ' to crib and confne themselves in an I ''proletariat." The simple truth va ! they didn't intend to remain rail-splii . ters or tew-path boys or bobbin-tent ' CTS. Their ambition drove them, by th ' exercise of thrift and industry and sin : liar virtues. to an upward climb in tn direction of governorships and presider
 cies, or other desired peaks of vantag
 Take Individualism, for another e, o ample. The American of former day
 usually carried this virtue to an exces