USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 98
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RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT
for it, and found that boundless solitude was not essential for liberty of conscience; in later days Rhode Islanders found through experience that living nearer together becomes possible through application of the same principle. Dealing with immigration in unprecedented pro- portions, strong effort became necessary to preserve the Rhode Island tradition. That it sur- vives, and that it has been accepted, no one who knows Rhode Island may doubt.
THE IMPORTANCE OF RHODE ISLAND-It has been altogether unfortunate that maps (except railroad maps) are drawn to scales relating to such trivial, inconsequential and unim- portant relations as distances and areas, even in a century in which distance has been annihi- lated, and area may be relegated to the insignificance of a vanishing factor in a formula of relativity. The maps exclude, and disregard utterly, significant measures which might indicate population and wealth, industry and its products, intelligence and education, contributions to human welfare, comparative influence in national counsels, eminent citizens, and other measures that might be suggested for estimating the position of a state. Thus it happens that on geo- graphical maps of the United States Rhode Island appears usually as a spot or dot so small that the name of the state is reduced to two of the five words used in both the state and the federal Constitution, and is printed over the Atlantic Ocean, misleading some persons who know not otherwise so that they believe that Rhode Island is an island off the coast of New England. So astute an observer as Henry Van Dyke learned otherwise and more. "Rhode Island was not, as I in my Knickerbocker ignorance had supposed," he wrote, "a fraction of New England supine between Massachusetts and Connecticut. It was an independent and sovereign, though diminutive state. It had its own traditions and its own ideals." Even on maps drawn to illus- trate the significance of statistics with relativity indicated by shading, the arrangement of states continues to be metric. And thus it happens that the Rhode Islander, wherever he goes, is greeted with trite references to the area of his state, reflecting utter ignorance of the truth that greatness is not related to size, stature, weight, or other measures of purely physical elements. Not everybody is so ill-informed; thus a state officer from Massachusetts, addressing in Texas an audience including officers from many states, remarked that he had been corrected so many times by an officer in Rhode Island for misstatement that he would not venture to say even that Texas was the most extensive state in the union, lest the Rhode Islander rise up to correct him for neglecting Rhode Island. Rhode Island is a great state. It gave to American democracy the single characteristic which distinguishes it from the democracy of all earlier history. It kept lighted the torch of personal liberty in New England against the effort of jealous neighbors and malevolent plotters within the body politic to extinguish it.
There are no names in seventeenth century history more worthy of memory than those of the pioneers who founded Rhode Island. Throughout the eighteenth century Rhode Island raised courageous men to carry on the experiment in democracy and to resist aggression ; they bore their parts well in defending Charter rights, in promoting the public welfare, in building a strong commonwealth through the development of economic resources, in colonial wars, and eventually in establishing independence of the mother country when the latter forgot its obliga- tions. To the names of Williams, Clarke, Gorton, Hutchinson, and others of the illustrious company of the seventeenth century may be added those of the Wantons and the Greenes, Hop- kins, Ward, Cooke, Arnold, and Howell, besides those of military and naval heroes too numer- ous to be mentioned here, and all so courageous that none should be omitted were any named. Bridging the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the four Brown brothers and their associates achieved the rehabilitation of the state. The names of Aldrich, Anthony, Burges, Burrill and Jenckes are only a few of those of Rhode Island congressmen who were prominent in the counsels of the nation. The number of captains of industry, such as the Goddards, Lippitts, Spragues. Knights, Sharpes, Metcalfs, Gorham and Banigan ; of inventors, such as Jenks, Wil- . kinson, Slater, Thorp, Grinnell, Heaton, Brown, Corliss, Harris and Nicholson, to mention only a few in each category, is legion.
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Rhode Island has been as thoroughly independent and self-reliant through three centuries as in the pioneering days of the first century. It has had its own opinions and defended them, holding tenaciously to the right as Rhode Island saw the right, even to standing alone on occa- sion, as the founders did on soul liberty, as Howell did on the impost proposed by the Con- federation, as Rhode Island did eventually on ratification of the Constitution. On the other hand, Rhode Island has been first as many times in proposing reforms as last in accepting changes which did not commend themselves. It has been well for the United States that Rhode Island has maintained its traditional attitude of pursuing its own way when convinced of the right, and of ignoring the opinions of others when these did not conform to the Rhode Island view. In the twentieth century Rhode Island is as alert and vigorous in asserting its own exclusive jurisdiction against pretence of federal jurisdiction as ever it was in the eighteenth century against British invasion of Rhode Island rights. Thus when a federal coastguard vessel fired upon the "Black Duck," powerboat, in Narragansett Bay in 1929, killing members of the complement for alleged disregard of an order to stop when suspected of smuggling, the Rhode Island Attorney General investigated, and demanded and obtained the appearance of coastguard vessel's officers and crew before a Rhode Island grand jury. The episode recalled arrests by Rhode Island sheriffs, in the eighteenth century, of British naval officers and custom house employes, and the rigid enforcement of Rhode Island laws with respect to British officers and vessels while within the jurisdiction of the colony. The burning of the "Gaspee" might be justified as the suppression of a vessel practicing piracy to the extent of disregarding law and law-enforcing officers of the colony of Rhode Island.
EDUCATION AS THE SOLVENT FOR PROBLEMS-No colony so soon after founding turned to education as did Rhode Island, the town of Newport achieving the first American public school. The continued interest in education throughout the colonial period appears in the fragmentary town public records, and in the quality of state papers, the founding of libraries, and the rise of professions. Following the Revolution John Howland developed his project for a statewide free public school system, Dorr carried forward the movement, and Henry Barnard fashioned the plans for a thoroughly modern reorganization. The school and other educational agencies, including liberal colleges and free public libraries, have helped not only to preserve Rhode Island traditions, but to assimilate and spread abroad fresh concepts of democracy. Without its school system, Rhode Island in the nineteenth and twentieth century would be a bedlam of alien races, alien cultures, alien languages, and possibly alien hatreds, with thousands of immi- grants drawn from all parts of Europe preserving for their descendants the traditions of the Old World. As it is, the schools have helped the second, third and later generations to become good Americans and good Rhode Islanders, and Rhode Island has accepted all of them in a common citizenship, avoiding what might be the consequences of conflicting racial aspirations.
In much the same way the school has tended to stabilize relations between country and city ; it is scarcely conceivable in the twentieth century that the farmers of Rhode Island should undertake to starve residents of cities and compact towns as they did in the period of the paper money war before ratification of the Constitution of the United States; or that Providence should undertake secession from the state, as it did in the same period, unless the Constitution should be ratified. On the contrary, representatives of country and city meet in General Assem- bly to discuss problems affecting the state, already trained through the schools to understanding of common interests. Rhode Island is essentially one, with less sectionalism and provincialism than in most states. Rhode Islanders have faith in Rhode Island, because Rhode Island has faith in them as citizens.
RHODE ISLAND NOT EXCLUSIVELY MATERIALISTIC-At lunch in a New York hotel a Rhode Islander met a group of men from half a dozen states, and the conversation drifted to Rhode Island. One remarked the per capita wealth of the state, another the population, another
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RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT
the influence of Senator Aldrich in the affairs of the nation. "The last," remarked the Rhode Islander, "comes nearest the real truth and explains everything else; the wealth of Rhode Island, the comfortable life of the people, the number who live there from choice, the factories, and the influence of the state all rest upon Rhode Island manhood, the long procession of masterful men marching generation after generation through three centuries, upholding liberal ideals. While the hunger impulse drove Rhode Island to the economic development necessary to sustain life for enjoying the fine principles enunciated by the founders, the accumulating wealth has been used to promote a finer culture among the people. Liberal education, art and refine- ment have been extended, and the state has continued to produce the type of man needed for leadership as well as the type of man needed for successful achievement of the aims of the leaders. You should see our churches, our schools and colleges, our libraries and art treasures, our comfortable homes, our parks and playgrounds, our happy and contented people; you should recognize, along with the material aspects of our prosperity, the status of a people who make provision liberally for spiritual and religious, for educational and cultural, for health and recreational needs. I venture to think that no state exceeds Rhode Island in the proportion of its citizenry who are active members of churches and regular attendants. Few states have so many books per capita, and few people read more books than Rhode Islanders if the circulation of free public libraries is an index." "I have noticed," remarked a citizen of another state, "the high quality of articles made in Rhode Island." "We make nothing better in Rhode Island than the men and women we make," was the retort.
Rhode Island is rounding out three centuries in which the common man has been trusted, and there is nothing which begets and strengthens manhood more than faith in the integrity of men. Of Rhode Island patriotism there has been no question at any time. Of the common sense of her citizens there is scarcely a more convincing proof than relatively the peaceable relations of labor and capital in the most intensively industrially developed state in the union. No people respond more quickly and generously to requests for relief or for assistance of good causes.
IF ROGER WILLIAMS AND JOHN CLARKE COULD RETURN-What would Roger Williams and John Clarke think of Rhode Island in the twentieth century? While it is conceivable that Roger Williams might not be entirely happy in Rhode Island in the twentieth century, missing the bitter controversy that was characteristic of most of his life, he would rejoice to find that Rhode Island has kept the faith with reference to religious liberty. What he preached and prac- ticed as an almost unbelievable ideal in his own century, scarcely possible of realization-the toleration of Catholics and Hebrews by Protestants, of Protestants and Hebrews by Catholics, of Catholics and Protestants by Hebrews-is a fact in Rhode Island. Contrary to his lifetime opposition to a "settled ministry," he would find Rhode Island a state dotted with temples dedi- cated to the worship of God, and large numbers of men and women living their lives somewhat apart from the workaday world in devotion to religion. He would find religion thoroughly organized on denominational lines, yet separated from dependence upon or control by the polit- ical state-a development of his own theory of separation of state and church somewhat beyond the vision granted to him in his lifetime. He would find one of his dreams completely fulfilled in the spectacle of men of widely different religious persuasions abiding together in peace and harmony. Perhaps he would become reconciled to so much that was different from his own conception when he realized that it was Rhode Island's persistent maintenance of principles enunciated by him which had brought to pass the fine spirit of the twentieth century. He would miss, no doubt, the quarrels over ownership of land that plagued him, unless William Harris could come back with him as a loving companion if only to revive the enmities of old days, although Roger Williams would find the men of the twentieth century competing keenly with each other in business and professions and occasionally engaged in litigation. He would find life vastly more comfortable than in pioneering days, with heated homes, abundant food, good roads
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and bridges, stores for trading offering an untold wealth of articles for sale, and everything to satisfy needs or fashion. He might find prohibition irksome, as it must be to men of his gen- eration, and might believe that Rhode Island in other ways had become too conventional. He must rejoice, however, in the opportunity afforded by the public press for expression of opinion and become a frequent contributor to the "letters to the editor" columns. While there might be compensations in twentieth century life for many of the characteristics of seventeenth century life which he would miss, it is probable that he might remain in Rhode Island only long enough to satisfy his legitimate curiosity as to the extent to which Rhode Island had grown and to which his ideas had been exemplified in practice, and then seek transportation to another frontier, there to undertake the conversion of aboriginal inhabitants to Christianity and there to contemplate in the solitude of the wilderness the new problems which his contact with twentieth century democracy could not fail to awaken in his facile mind.
John Clarke would be much less restless in a twentieth century environment than Roger Williams, for he was a man of less erratic temperament. He, too, would find his ideal of tolera- tion realized in practice, and Rhode Island holding "forth a lively experiment that a most flourishing civil state may stand and best be maintained with full liberty in religious concern- ments." As a physician he would marvel at the progress made in the arts and sciences of medi- cine and surgery, and be astounded at magnificent hospitals with their apparatus and equipment for relieving pain and curing disease. His interest in education beginning so early (if not earlier ) as the town meeting in Newport of August, 1640, at which the town voted to establish a public school, would carry him on an inspection tour of a system of education extending from children's classes to liberal arts and vocational colleges. His philanthropy, witnessed by the pub- lic bequest in his will, would lead him to visit and inspect the many charitable institutions main- tained in Rhode Island. As an investigator of religion, witnessed by his Concordance for the Bible, he would be interested in the doctrinal differences of religious denominations, although contented with the minor emphasis in modern days upon metaphysical distinctions. As a preacher he might be invited to fill niany pulpits. He would be delighted to find that he could visit sick friends in Massachusetts without danger of arrest, imprisonment and flogging. He would find Connecticut resting behind the boundary clearly indicated in the two Charters signed by King Charles II. He would find Rhode Island prosperous and well able to pay him promptly and fully the amount due on his expense account incurred on his mission to England, and for his service as agent for Rhode Island during his residence in London. Altogether he would see in Rhode Island in the twentieth century a well-organized civil and social community of the progressive type of which Newport more than Providence was characteristic in the seventeenth century. No doubt John Clarke would be content to settle and remain in Rhode Island practic- ing his profession and pursuing his own persuasions in religion, with a kindly spirit of tolera- tion exemplified mutually by him and his fellow-citizens.
RHODE ISLAND HAS KEPT THE FAITH -- Though Williams might find Rhode Island of the twentieth century less to his liking than would John Clarke, the difference of viewpoint would rest exclusively upon the characteristic attitudes of the two men-Williams, the restless pioneer, and Clarke, the sober, settled man of strong opinions. Neither could be dissatisfied with Rhode Island in the twentieth century so far as the state is engaged in exemplifying religious tolera- tion as a fundamental principle in government. Indeed, Rhode Island is carrying the principle forward in an experiment transcending in all its implications the problem faced in the seven- teenth century. Then the population of Rhode Island had been drawn principally from Eng- land, and the settlers for the most part were men and women of a single racial and cultural stock ; in the twentieth century the experiment goes forward among men and women of every racial and cultural stock of Europe, with widely variant views of life in most of its implications, besides variant attitudes toward religion. The problem is more complex in the twentieth century than it was in the seventeenth ; yet the correctness of the principle is demonstrated by its satis-
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factory application in circumstances both of simplicity and of complexity. Rhode Island has not only maintained toleration, but it has succeeded in imparting to newcomers some part of the Rhode Island tradition. Men and women of different religions, of different racial and national stocks, of different social cultures, accustomed to interpret situations in different ways, and to view the environment with different perspective, find in Rhode Island opportunity for peace- ably pursuing their different persuasions, in the broadened and broadening application of the principle of toleration. The result is exactly the same as that suggested by Rhode Island's treat- ment of the Quakers or Friends, and set forth in the letter sent to Massachusetts in the seven- teenth century, reading the Bay Colony a lesson in toleration and good sense, too. We find, wrote the Rhode Islanders, that when there is least opposition, there is less reason for display and less satisfaction in displaying the eccentricities of which the Friends were accused; that when they find no opposition they desist or depart for places where there is opposition. Thus it always has been in Rhode Island. Those who have fled to Rhode Island to escape persecution elsewhere have found contentment and toleration ; and Rhode Island has grown steadily to be always a better Rhode Island.
In this also lies the promise for the future of Rhode Island. Rhode Island in the twentieth century is still a state in which widely different cultures meet and mingle peaceably and har- moniously because Rhode Island is still engaged in the lively experiment. No good Rhode Islander may venture to think that in the twentieth century we have reached more than the ever present, and that there is no future. The future is plainly indicated by the past. Rhode Island will go forward, as always through the past three centuries, still leading the nation and the world to new visions of democracy made real in the exemplification of the Rhode Island principles.
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INDEX
R. I .- 76
INDEX
Acts of trade and navigation, 157-58, 177, 186, 245, 399, 514.
Adams, John Quincy, 563, 566-67, 675, 986, 1051. Advertising, 913, 1099.
Advisory opinions, Supreme Court, 488, 647-48, 656, 662-63, 665, 669, 671, 681, 708, 713, 718, 720, 724, 746-48, 778, 784, 950, 975, 1039.
Agrarian unrest, 348-49, 374, 387, 394. And see sectionalism.
Agriculture, chapter XXX, 110, 113, 513, 530, 571, 734, 781, 885-86, 897, 1150-51, 1154, 1156, 1165, 1185.
Apples, 885, 889, 890, 895, 1177.
Asparagus, 889, 891, 1177.
Board of, 897, 1037.
Commissioner of, 897, 978.
Cranberries, 895, 898.
Dairying, 886, 894, 898.
Market gardening, 892-93, 1154, 1166. Orcharding, 885, 895.
Poultry culture, 886, 894-95. Rhode Island Reds, 889, 890-91, 1177.
Southern competition, 893.
Strawberries, 889, 891, 1177.
Sweet corn, 889, 891, 1176-77.
Aeronauts, airplanes, and airport, 724, 737, 785, 854-56, 885, III7.
Albany Congress and plan, 143, 145-46, 226, 351, 669. Aldrich, Nelson W., 696-98, 707, 766, 1101, 1195, 1197.
Alexander, Cosmo, 125, 1049, 1050, 1058. Alien and Sedition Laws, 561-62, 582, 1150. Alien desperadoes, 758, 761.
Allen, Philip, 578, 582, 799, 862, 963, 1000, 1093, 1186.
Allen, Zachariah, 526, 817, 1053, 1063. Allston, Washington. 125, 1050-52, 1058. America sings, III3. American Legion, 1118, 1124.
American system, 691, 1088, 1092. "Americans" and "foreigners," 644, 1151.
Ames, Samuel, 509, 592, 594, 747-48, 752, 964, 1062, 1093. Andrews, E. Benjamin, 457, 676, 969, 970-71, 988, 1061, 1063, 1105, 1137. Andros, Sir Edmund, 61-62, 162, 679, 1009, 1177, 1192.
Angell, Israel, 273, 286-87, 290, 315, 343, 1082. Angell, James B., 966, 1093.
Angell, Joseph K., 964, 1062. Angell, Oliver, 426. 429, 542, 994, 1063. Ann Mary Brown Memorial, 1050-52, 1057. Annapolis Convention, 372. Annulment of colonial statute, 175. See Veto. Anthony, Henry B., 495, 577-78, 591, 598, 613, 643,
658, 691-92, 694-95, 763, 965, 968, 1052-53, 1061, 1064, 1088-89, 1092-95, 1132.
Appeals to England, 206, 299, 356.
Appeals to General Assembly, 465, 470, 508, 549, 576, 592, 742, 744, 1193. And see "independ- ent judiciary."
Appointive power, 675, 678, 681, 719, 720-22, 741, 1193. Apprenticeship, 114, 870, 948.
Arbor Day, 556, 946.
Arcade, 842, 881, 910, 912-13, 916, 1072.
Armistice, 1119, 1120-24, 1189.
Armories, 716, 718, 724, 728, 784-85, 1187-88.
Arnold, Benedict (1), 36, 54, 68, 95, 98, 155.
Arnold, Bendict (2), 275-77, 292, 314.
Arnold, Jonathan, 269, 349, 360-61, 363-65, 367-69, 370, 378, 401, 1195.
Arnold, Lemuel H., 492, 569, 577, 1053.
Arnold, Samuel G., 579, 609, 966, 1059, 1061, 1093.
Arsenal, 496, 502, 594, 715, 724.
Art and Literature, chapter XXXVIII.
Art resources, 985, 1057.
Articles of Confederation, 320, 353, 357-58, 361, 369, 373, 466, 469. Atherton claim, 30, 60, 62.
Atwell, Samuel Y., 486, 489, 576.
Auditor, State, 594, 782, 818. See Comptroller.
Austrians, 1157-59.
Automobiles, 720, 737, 785-87, 819, 836-37, 844-46, 850-51, 856, 865, 872, 889, 892, 919, 920, 931, 977-78. 1098, 1174-75, 1181, 1188-89.
Autonomy of towns, 81, 460, 593, 673, 722, 823, 945, 949, 1187, 1194.
Baker, David S., 661, 663, 666. Ballot, 659, 660, 664-65, 678, 783. Secret, 207, 398, 477-78.
Banigan, Joseph, 834, 879, 880, 1025, 1035, 1094, 1195. Banks and Banking, chapter XXVII, 325, 526-28, 532, 535, 678, 715, 734, 763, 797, 781-82, 786, 791-95, 800, 807-08, 811-16, 910-1I, II84-86, 1188.
Bank Commission, 797, 799. Bank Commissioner, 811, 816, 1188.
Bank of Commerce, 438, 439, 731, 765, 767, 808, 812, 816, 912.
Bank of North America, 431.
Bank of United States, 430, 793, 796, 799.
Bank process, 528, 791-92, 794, 797, 799, 813.
Branch banks, 811-12, 815, 920.
Building and loan associations, 812.
Farmers' Exchange Bank, 792.
Franklin Savings Bank, 766, 769, 802, 807.
Globe Bank, 431, 438, 439, 635, 795, 799, 804, 807, 808.
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National Banks, 633, 791, 799, 801, 802, 1185. National Exchange Bank, 526.
Old Stone Bank, 418, 532, 800, 812-13, 910, 912.
Providence Bank, 401, 404, 525, 791, 796-97, 804, 809, 812, 910, 912, 1185.
Savings Banks, 527, 532, 734, 782, 783-87, 791, 800-02, 811, 814.
Trust Companies, 734, 786-87, 791, 801, 807, 809, 810, 814, 816, 1188.
Hospital Trust, 809, 810, 812, 912.
Industrial Trust, 526, 699, 809, 810, 812, 913, 1091.
Union Trust, 809, 810-II, 842-43, 913, 1188. Barnaby, J. B., 643, 651, 654, 695, 912.
Barnard, Henry, 429, 430, 433, 437, 537-39, 542-44, 547, 549, 550-52, 557, 576, 713-14, 752, 933, 1057, 1073, 1129, 1151, 1185, 1196.
Barnard, Mary, 22, 68, 1125, 1127. See Mary Williams.
Barre, Col. Isaac, 241, 243, 249.
Bartlett, Elisha, 1038.
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