THRIFT.
In his speech in Congress upon the death of John Covode, Simon Cameron declared that he honored Covode for his true courage when he proclaimed in Philadelphia what weaker men would have tried to suppress, giving as a reason for his hostility to every species of human bondage the fact that his father had been sold as a redemptionist near the spot where he was then speaking. “Scarcely a generation had passed away,” adds Cameron, “before the hired servants began to buy their masters’ lands, to marry their masters’ daughters, and to make good their claim to full equality with those whose bondsmen they had been. For a time the Scotch-Irish made a sturdy stand for that supremacy and superiority which seem to be their peculiar inheritance, place them where you may. At length the thrift, the superior patience, and the perseverance of the German blood prevailed. They bought, and still possess, the old homesteads, and have furnished us with an array of distinguished men of whom every citizen of our State is justly proud.” The superior patience, says Mr. Cameron. Geduld ist das beste Kraut, das man in America baut,—patience is the best plant grown in America,—is a saying I have heard in Lancaster County. But I must interrupt my regular course to explain the word redemptionist used by Mr. Cameron. It was applied to persons coming here from Germany who were unable to pay the expenses of their passage, and who were sold or indentured for a term of years until that expense was paid. Minor children were bound out until of age.
Mr. Cameron also speaks of the Pennsylvania Germans dispossessing the Scotch-Irish, and plenty of corroborative evidence of this can be found. A learned gentleman has said to me that the Scotch-Irish element, which used to be the leading one in Franklin County, is in a great measure replaced by the Pennsylvania German. “As the Irish farmers got poor and sold their land it was bought by the Pennsylvania Germans, who then got rich by their extreme thrift or severe economy and great industry.” A correspondent of the Philadelphia Press, in 1871, goes further, and writing from Brown’s Mills in the same county, from “the fertile and picturesque Cumberland valley,” speaks of the Pennsylvania Germans of that region as wearing the short gown and petticoat, the shad-belly coat, and broad-brimmed hat. The district, he says, was first settled by Scotch-Irish and Welsh, but these have mostly been replaced; a few families of Lutherans and German Reformed linger here, but their numbers annually grow less, and the difficulty of supporting their ministers is yearly more serious. Then, if we may trust this correspondent, it appears that the wehrlos, or defenceless men (who do not pay ministers), are gaining possession of that region. It was said of old time that the meek shall inherit the earth. Far east of Franklin County, in Montgomery, I was told of peacemen, the Schwenkfelders and Mennonites, that they buy good farms. “They don’t buy the hilly, stony ones; and, at the same time, I don’t know how it comes they can afford to pay for them.”
The severe economy of the Pennsylvania Germans has been just mentioned. One New-Year’s day I saw in a bank a young man who was asked to subscribe for something. He declined, and spoke of “our old Dutch rule that it is a bad plan to buy on New-Year’s morning. Always get money in before you pay it out.” In Northampton County an old resident is reported to have said, “Do you know the difference between a Yankee farmer and a Dutch one? When a Yankee farmer has apples, he sells the scrubby ones and eats the good ones at home; and a Dutch farmer picks out the scrubby ones to eat at home, and sells the good ones.”
One of my Lancaster County neighbors has grain-bags that have been in use on the farm for about seventy years, and bid fair to last for twenty more. They were made from flax and hemp grown on the farm. A young member of the family says that their preservation not only shows the economy, but impresses him with proofs of the good judgment of those who made them, in selecting material, and in the thorough manner of their work. He adds, “All these characteristics were, I think, possessed in full measure by the people, somehow and somewhere misnamed Dutch, in whose hands the largest part of Lancaster County has become what it is.”