In the history of a nation or a people there are sometimes important changes taking place, so gradually and quietly that they are scarcely perceptible at the time. It may require a series of years or several generations to work out the problems involved, but they may be followed with results of great magnitude. Some changes of this character have been taking place in our New England population, which we purpose here briefly to notice. In the earlier history of New England there were few changes in the residence of her people. As agricultural pursuits constituted their principal occupation, the same farms and lands continued to a great extent in the same families from generation to generation. Prior to the Revolutionary War very little emigration took place out of New England. In the early part of the present century many persons removed to New York and some to Ohio. From 1810 to 1830 this emigration continued steadily to increase, not only to those States but to the States and Territories farther west. To such an extent had this emigration been carried on that, in 1840, the United States census reported nearly half a million of persons born in New England who were living in other States...
Denis Kearney was mainly known as American labor agitator of 19th century, and one of the most important leaders of the anti-Chinese campaign in California. He began an agitation among the workingmen in 1877. His attacks being directed mostly against the rights of capital and the importation of Chinese labor. This book deals with the Kearney Agitation in California. "What has been going on in California is not out of the natural course of things. The forces that have produced these events have been developed, not imported. And as it seems to me that the same forces exist in other parts of the country, I cannot see why, essentially, the same movements may not soon begin elsewhere. It is this that makes these California experiences worthy of attention. Every result becomes in turn a cause; every event is the progenitor of future events. And it is probable that this California agitation marks the beginning of a new phase in our politics. Whatever be his future career, Kearney has already made what will be regarded by thousands and thousands of men, many of them of much greater abilities, as a dazzlingly brilliant success. An unknown drayman, destitute of advantages, without following or influence, he has, simply by appealing to popular discontent and arousing the uneasy timidity which is its correlative, risen to the rank of a great leader, and drunk the sweets of power and fame. He knows what it is to be the hero and the master of surging multitudes; to draw forth their applause by a word, to hush them into silence with a wave of his hand; to be garlanded with flowers; to be drawn in triumph through crowded streets; to be attended wherever he went by a retinue of reporters and correspondents; to rise every morning to find the newspapers filled with him; to have men, who would not have noticed him had he stuck to his dray, slink by night to his house, or solicit his favors by go-betweens; to look upon high officials as the creatures of his making; to be known and talked about, not merely through the whole country, but over the world! Whatever becomes of Kearney - and it would be rash to predict that his career is yet over - this lesson will not be lost: The wave rises, curls, and subsides, and, where was its white crest, are but some spumes of foam. But the impulse is perpetuated, and another wave swells up. When, under institutions that proclaim equality, masses of men, whose ambitions and tastes are aroused only to be crucified, find it a hard, bitter, degrading struggle even to live, is it to be expected that the sight of other men rolling in their millions will not excite discontent? And, when discontented men have votes, is it to be expected that the demagogue will not appeal to the discontent, for the sake of the votes? It is useless to blink the fact. Nothing is clearer, to whoever will look, than that the political equality from which we cannot recede, and the social inequality to which we are tending, cannot peacefully coexist. Nothing is surer than that all the inventions, and improvements, and discoveries, of which our time is so fruitful, are tending with irresistible force to carry mere political democracy into anarchy."
"The project for a deep waterway from the Great Lakes to the Gulf has been dreamed about and discussed intermittently for half a century, but nothing definite ever came of it until a little over a year ago, when, from a conference held at St. Louis, there was born the permanent organization called the "Lakes to the Gulf Deep Waterways Association." That this concerted movement came at the psychological moment has been indicated by subsequent events. Last winter the Rivers and Harbors Congress in session at Washington supported the project. The president in his Memphis address heartily endorsed the enterprise; shortly afterward his annual message called attention to the need for river improvement and the question is now in the hands of congress with some definite action sure to come in the near future. Within the last decade, this country has entered three fields of government activity, forest conservation, reclamation of arid and swamp lands and the building of the Isthmian Canal, the far-reaching results of which can scarcely be estimated at this time. The development of a ship channel through the Mississippi Valley, with feeding lines in the larger tributaries, would likewise be of such tremendous importance to the economic progress of the country that it must be ranked second to none in the list of great national policies..."
This book deals with the history and migrations of Celtic people. In that remote age of which no personal records remain, but whose history may be derived from the known dispersion of men and languages, we find that the Celtics, first of the Indo-European nations, fled from their primitive homes in Central Asia, and, by the succeeding waves of emigration, were forced further and further to the West. It does not necessarily follow that their migrations, in the ante-historical period, were caused by war; although, amongst the races of men, whilst in an imperfect state of development, the tie of country is so strong that nothing but the most positive evils of war, pestilence, and famine will compel them to abandon their native land. But the early migrations of the Celts may have been also caused by the pressure of the new Eastern populations forcing the tribes least willing or able to labor into new and virgin soils, producing a greater return in proportion to the farmer's toil. It has been conclusively established by Pritchard and Donaldson, following in the track of many continental ethnologists and philologists, that the Celtic and German languages, with their derivatives, as well as the ancient Greek and Latin, all belong to the same family with the Sanscrit, and are in fact different modifications of the same language. From this, coupled with the slender traditions of the ante-historical period, it is concluded that the Celtic people of are Eastern origin-a kindred tribe with the nations who have settled on the Indus, as well as on the shores of the Mediterranean and Baltic. In the most ancient times, they possessed the greater part of Europe. In Spain, at the Roman conquest, the population was almost wholly Celtic. To the north of Italy, they gave the name of Cisalpine Gaul. Modern Germany was long the seat of powerful Celtic communities Thrace was in their possession, and, under another Brennus, they plundered Greece. Asia Minor they long possessed, and left there the name of Galatia. It may be observed that the Celtic races have ever been remarkable for sudden migrations. We do not find them well known to the early historians. Herodotus places them in the extreme West of Europe, beyond the pillars of Hercules. In the fourth century before the Christian Era, the Celts of Gaul crossed the Apennines and overran Central and Southern Italy. According to Livy, two hundred years before that period, one multitude of the Gauls crossed the Rhine, and settled in the Hercynian Forest; another crossed the Alps, settled in the valley of the Po, and founded Milan. In the Gaelic invasion of Italy, they defeated the Romans in the battle of the Allia, and were in possession of Rome for six months, with the exception of the Capitol. But, unlike the northern invaders, during the decline of the Roman Empire, they established no states in Central or Southern Italy, and retired loaded with booty...
This book presents the History of Argentina, from its discovery and Spanish colonization to the development of the country. "The description of the white man's spread over this immense country, the largest (except Brazil) of the South American states, and of all these the most immediately and unquestionably suitable for maintaining a large population of European blood-is tedious when told in detail. But it is a story fraught with significance for the future of the world. On the plains of Argentina the descendants of the Spanish conquerors have fought out among themselves all the perplexing questions arising from the adaptation of Spanish absolutism and ancient burgh law to a new country and to personal freedom. After more than half a century of civil war, constitutional equilibrium has been attained. The country ought to be interesting where there has grown up within a few decades the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere, and the largest Latin city, except Paris, in the world. The growth of Buenos Aires has been as dizzying as that of Chicago, and the world has never seen a more rapid and easy multiplication of wealth than that which took place in Argentina between the years of 1870 and 1890. Interesting, too, is Argentina as the scene of the most extensive experiment in the mixture of races now going on anywhere in the world except in the United States. In forty years more than two millions of immigrants have made their homes in Argentina. The majority are from Southern Europe, but the proportion of British, Germans, French, Belgians, and Swiss is a fifth of the whole. Will the Northerners be assimilated and disappear in the mass of Southerners, or will they succeed in impressing their characteristics on the latter? Will a mixed race be evolved especially suited to success in subtropical America? Will the system of administration painfully evolved out of the old Spanish laws prove permanently suited to the great industrial and commercial state that is growing up on the Argentine pampa?..."
The Conquest and History of Canada. "England and France started in a fair race for the magnificent prize of supremacy in America. The advantages and difficulties of each were much alike, but the systems by which they improved those advantages and met those difficulties were essentially different. New France was colonized by a government, New England by a people. In Canada the men of intellect, influence, and wealth were only the agents of the mother country; they fulfilled, it is true, their colonial duties with zeal and ability, but they ever looked to France for honor and approbation, and longed for a return to her shores as their best reward. They were in the colony, but not of it. They strove vigorously to repel invasion, to improve agriculture, and to encourage commerce, for the sake of France, but not for Canada.The mass of the population of New France were descended from settlers sent out within a short time after the first occupation of the country, and who were not selected for any peculiar qualifications. They were not led to emigrate from the spirit of adventure, disappointed ambition, or political discontent; by far the larger proportion left their native country under the pressure of extreme want or in blind obedience to the will of their superiors. They were then established in points best suited to the interests of France, not those best suited to their own. The physical condition of the humbler emigrant, however, became better than that of his countrymen in the Old World; the fertile soil repaid his labor with competence; independence fostered self-reliance, and the unchecked range of forest and prairie inspired him with thoughts of freedom. But all these elevating tendencies were fatally counteracted by the blighting influence of feudal organization. Restrictions, humiliating as well as injurious, pressed upon the person and property of the Canadian..."
-The Conquest of Canada (Vol.2)-"One of the most momentous political questions that has ever yet moved the human race was decided in the Canadian war. When a few English and French emigrants first landed among the Virginian and Canadian forests, it began; when the British flag was hoisted on the citadel of Quebec, it was decided. From that day the hand of Providence pointed out to the Anglo-Saxon race that to them was henceforth intrusted the destiny of the New World."
History of the Mexican Empire and Mexico after the Empire (with illustrations).
"South of the United States, stretching away towards Central America, lies the country of Mexico...
It is difficult to choose whether to follow first the history of these most ancient of people, or to commence with those that have filled a more prominent place in more recent times. Let us go up into that vast table-land and seek out the abiding-place of the nation that ruled Mexico when first this country was discovered by Europeans, by white men. We shall find ourselves in the valley of Mexico, enclosed on all sides by spurs of mountains from that mighty chain that strides the whole length of the continent..."
