Page:Visit of the Hon. Carl Schurz to Boston, March 1881.pdf/83

too young to recollect that there ever were Know Nothings: perhaps, however, taking the Greek translation, the Agnostics of to-day are their descendants. We who remember the Know Nothings see what an enormous change has taken place. People used to say that Americans must govern New England. The Puritan English have done great things for this country, and they will continue to as long as it is a country; but the field needs millions of laborers more than the Puritans can ever give to it, and we must have them from all nations. And when you come to talk of a foreigner, what is a foreigner? I am aware that our old ethnology used to speak of Aryans and Basques and Celts,—which some studious ladies pronounced “Kelts,”—and of other strange people. But now comes Virchow and says this is all bosh; there is no such thing as a pure Aryan, or a pure Basque, or a pure anybody; we are all mixed up together, and have been since the neolithic age. And so, whether we like it or not, the Americans of the future will be—as indeed they are to-day—a mixed race of English, Irish, Germans, Welsh, and Scandinavians. Therefore we owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr. Carl Schurz for having shown that a foreigner, born abroad and coming to this country, can, in a high office, not only be a useful man, but even a blessing to the country.