And right here it may be well enough to say that I think it was exceedingly unfortunate that this country was discovered under the auspices of Spain. Ferdinand and Isabella were a couple of wretches. The same year that Columbus discovered America, these sovereigns expelled the Jews from Spain, and the expulsion was accompanied by every outrage, by every atrocity to which man—that is to say, savage man—that is to say, the superstitious savage—is capable of inflicting.
The Spaniards came to America and destroyed two civilizations far better than their own. They were natural robbers, buccaneers, and thought nothing of murdering thousands for gold. I am perfectly willing to celebrate the fact of discovery, but for the sovereigns of Spain I am not willing to celebrate, except, perhaps their deaths. There is at least some joy to be extracted from that.
In spite of the untoward circumstances under which the continent was discovered and settled, there is one thing that counteracted to a certain degree the influence of the Old World in the New. Possibly we owe our liberty to the Indians. If there had been no hostile savages on this continent, the kings and princes of the Old World would have taken possession and would have divided it out among their favorites. They tried to do that, but their favorites could not take possession. They had to fight for the soil and in the conflict of centuries they found that a good fighter was a good citizen, and the ideas of caste were slowly lost.
Then another thing was of benefit to us. The settlers felt that they had earned the soil; that they had fought for it, gained it by their sufferings, their courage, their selfdenial, and their labor; and the idea crept into their heads that the kings in Europe, who had done nothing, had no right to dictate to them.
Thus at first the spirit of caste was destroyed by respectability resting on usefulness. The spirit of subserviency to the Old World also died, and the people who had rescued the land made up their minds not only to own it, but to control it. They were also firmly convinced that the profits belonged to them. In this way manhood was recognized in the New World. In this way grew up the feeling of nationality here.
What I wish to see celebrated in this great exposition are the triumphs that have been achieved in this New World. These I wish to see above all. At the same time I want the best that labor and thought have produced in all countries. It seems to me that in the presence of the wonderful machines, of those marvelous mechanical contrivances by which we take advantage of the forces of nature, by which we make servants of the elemental powers—in the presence, I say, of these, it seems to me respect for labor must be born. We shall begin to appreciate the men of use instead of those who have posed as decorations. All the beautiful things, all the useful things, come from labor, and it is labor that has made the world a fit habitation for the human race.
Take from the World's Fair what labor has produced—the work of the great artists—and nothing will be left. What have the great conquerors to show in this great exhibition? What shall we get from the Caesars and the Napoleons? What shall we get from popes and cardinals? What shall we get from the nobility? From princes and lords and dukes? What excuse have they for having existence and for having lived on the bread earned by honest men? They stand in the show-windows of history, lay figures, on which fine goods are shown, but inside the raiment there is nothing, and never was. This exposition will be the apotheosis of labor. No man can attend it without losing, if he has any sense at all, the spirit of caste; or, if he still maintains it, he will put the useful in the highest class, and the useless, whether carrying sceptres or dishes for alms, in the lowest.—October, 1892.
THE SAVAGE made of the river, the tree, the mountain, a fetich. He put within, or behind these things, a spirit—according to Mr. Spencer, the spirit of a dead ancestor. This is considered by the modern Christian, and in fact by the modern philosopher, as the lowest possible phase of the religious idea. To put behind the river or the tree, or within them, a spirit, a something, is considered the religion of savagery; but to put behind the universe, or within it, the same kind of fetich, is considered the height of philosophy.
For my part, I see no possible distinction in these systems, except that the view of the savage is altogether the more poetic. The fetich of the savage is the noumenon of the Greek, the God of the theologian, the First Cause of the metaphysician, the Unknowable of Spencer.