Note 149 — CATHOLIC WORLD. (continued 3)

“We enter upon the second century of the republic with responsibilities which neither our fathers nor the men of fifty years ago could possibly foresee.” Again: “This enormous influx of strangers has added an immense ignorance and entire unfamiliarity with republican ideas and habits to the voting class.” And: “It has introduced powerful and organized influences not friendly to the republican principle of freedom of thought and action,” etc.—Geo. W. Curtis, LL.D., of New York, oration before the town authorities of Concord, Mass., April 19, 1875. Printed by permission. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. xxix., October, 1875.—Strange that Mr. Curtis should have forgotten the foreign influx among the signers! Yet Thornton was born in Ireland; Smith also, Taylor also; Lewis in Wales; Witherspoon near Edinburgh; Morris in Lancashire, England; Wilson in Scotland; Gwinnett in England. Strange that of fifty-nine signers so many should be strangers, besides those who were born of foreigners! And strange that the most refined and elegant civilians George Washington associated with in Philadelphia were Irishmen. And was not that a strange influx of Nesbitt saving Washington’s army from starvation? And what of the $25,000 that Barclay gave, and the $50,000 given by McClenaghan, etc., etc.?—an influx in infinitum. The influx worked well a hundred years ago; fear not, it will work well even now, but keep demagogues and false patriots aside. Yet on what side are most of them to be found?