Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 6.djvu/27

Rh We had invited the oppressed of all nations to find shelter here, and to enjoy with us the blessings of free institutions. They came by the millions. Some were not as welcome as others, but, under the assimilating force of American life in our temperate climate, which stimulates the working energies, nurses the spirit of orderly freedom and thus favors the growth of democracies, they became good Americans, most in the first generation, all in the following generations. And so with all the blood-crossings caused by the motley immigration, we became a substantially homogeneous people, united by common political beliefs and ideals, by common interests, laws and aspirations—in one word, a nation. Indeed, we were not without our difficulties and embarrassments, but only one of them, the race antagonism between the negroes and the whites, especially where the negroes live in mass, presents a problem which so far has baffled all efforts at practical solution in harmony with the spirit of our free institutions, and thus threatens complications of a grave character.

We gloried in the marvelous growth of our population, wealth, power and civilization, and in the incalculable richness of the resources of our country capable of harboring three times our present population, and of immeasurable further material development. Our commerce with the world abroad, although we had no colonies, and but a small navy, spread with unprecedented rapidity, capturing one foreign market after another, not only for the products of our farms, but also for many of those of our manufacturing industries, with prospects of indefinite extension.

Peace reigned within our borders, and there was not the faintest shadow of a danger of foreign attack. Our voice, whenever we chose to speak in the councils of nations, was listened to with respect, even the mightiest sea Power