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which we spring; and hence to-day we differ sharply from, and yet in some ways are fundamentally akin to, all of the nations of Europe.

Again, let me bid you welcome, representatives of our 5 sister Republics of this continent. In the larger aspect, your interests and ours are identical. Your problems and ours are in large part the same; and as we strive to settle them, I pledge you herewith on the part of this nation the heartiest friendship and good will.

Finally, let me say a special word of greeting to those representatives of the Asiatic nations who make up that newest East which is yet the most ancient East, the East of time immemorial. In particular, let me express a word of hearty welcome to the representative of the mighty 15 island empire of Japan; that empire, which, in learning from the West, has shown that it had so much, so very much, to teach the West in return.

To all of you here gathered I express my thanks for your coming, and I extend to you my earnest wishes for 20 the welfare of your several nations. The world has moved so far that it is no longer necessary to believe that one nation can rise only by thrusting another down. All farsighted statesmen, all true patriots, now earnestly wish that the leading nations of mankind, as in their several 25 ways they struggle constantly toward a higher civilization, a higher humanity, may advance hand in hand, united only in a generous rivalry to see which can best do its allotted work in the world. I believe that there is a rising tide in human thought which tends for righteous in30 ternational peace; a tide which it behooves us to guide through rational channels to sane conclusions; and all of us here present can well afford to take to heart St. Paul's

counsel: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men."

We have met to-day to celebrate the opening of the Exposition which itself commemorates the first permanent settlement of men of our stock in Virginia, the first be-5 ginning of what has since become this mighty Republic. Three hundred years ago a handful of English adventurers, who had crossed the ocean in what we should now call cockle-boats, as clumsy as they were frail, landed in the great wooded wilderness, the Indian-haunted waste, 10 which then stretched down to the water's edge along the entire Atlantic coast. They were not the first men of European race to settle in what is now the United States, for there were already Spanish settlements in Florida and on the headwaters of the Rio Grande; and the French, 15 who at almost the same time were struggling up the St. Lawrence, were likewise destined to form permanent settlements on the Great Lakes and in the valley of the Mississippi before the people of English stock went westward of the Alleghenies. Moreover, both the Dutch and 201 the Swedes were shortly to found colonies between the two sets of English colonies, those that grew up around the Potomac and those that grew up on what is now the New England Coast. Nevertheless, this landing at Jamestown possesses for us of the United States an alto- 25 gether peculiar significance, and this without regard to our several origins. The men who landed at Jamestown and those who, thirteen years later, landed at Plymouth, all of English stock, and their fellow-settlers who during the next few decades streamed in after them, were those 30 who took the lead in shaping the life history of this people in the colonial and revolutionary days. It was they who

bent into definite shape our nation while it was still young enough most easily, most readily, to take on the characteristics which were to become part of its permanent life habit.

5 Yet let us remember that while this early English colonial stock has left deeper than all others upon our national life the mark of its strong twin individualities, the mark of the Cavalier and of the Puritan-nevertheless, this stock, not only from its environment but also from the 10 presence with it of other stocks, almost from the beginning began to be differentiated strongly from any European people. As I have already said, about the time the first English settlers landed here, the Frenchman and the Spaniard, the Swede and the Dutchman, also came hither 15 as permanent dwellers, who left their seed behind them to help shape and partially to inherit our national life. The German, the Irishman, and the Scotchman came later, but still in colonial times. Before the outbreak of the Revolution the American people, not only because of 20 their surroundings, physical and spiritual, but because of the mixture of blood that had already begun to take place, represented a new and distinct ethnic type. This type has never been fixed in blood. All through the colonial days new waves of immigration from time to time 25 swept hither across the ocean, now from one country, now from another. The same thing has gone on ever since our birth as a nation; and for the last sixty years the tide of immigration has been at the full. The newcomers are soon absorbed into our eager national life, and are 30 radically and profoundly changed thereby, the rapidity of their assimilation being marvelous. But each group of newcomers, as it adds its blood to the life, also changes

it somewhat, and this change and growth and development have gone on steadily, generation by generation, throughout three centuries.

The pioneers of our people who first landed on these shores on that eventful day three centuries ago, had be-5 fore them a task which during the early years was of heartbreaking danger and difficulty. The conquest of a new continent is iron work. People who dwell in old civilizations and find that therein so much of humanity's lot is hard, are apt to complain against the conditions as 10 being solely due to man and to speak as if life could be made easy and simple if there were but a virgin continent in which to work. It is true that the pioneer life was simpler, but it was certainly not easier. As a matter of fact, the first work of the pioneers in taking possession 15 of a lonely wilderness is so rough, so hard, so dangerous that all but the strongest spirits fail. The early iron days of such a conquest search out alike the weak in body and the weak in soul. In the warfare against the rugged sternness of primeval Nature, only those can conquer 20 who are themselves unconquerable. It is not until the first bitter years have passed that the life becomes easy enough to invite a mass of newcomers, and so great are the risk, hardship, and toil of the early years that there always exists a threat of lapsing back from civilization.

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The history of the pioneers of Jamestown, of the founders of Virginia, illustrates the truth of all this. Famine and pestilence and war menaced the little band of daring men who had planted themselves alone on the edge of a frowning continent. Moreover, as men ever 30 find, whether in the tiniest frontier community or in the vastest and most highly organized and complex civilized

society, their worst foes were in their own bosoms. Dissension, distrust, the inability of some to work and the unwillingness of others, jealousy arrogance and envy, folly and laziness-in short all the shortcomings with 5 which we have to grapple now, were faced by those pioneers, and at moments threatened their whole enterprise with absolute ruin. It was some time before the ground on which they had landed supported them, in spite of its potential fertility, and they looked across the 10 sea for supplies. At one moment so hopeless did they become that the whole colony embarked, and was only saved from abandoning the country by the opportune arrival of help from abroad.

At last they took root in the land, and were already 15 prospering when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. In a few years a great inflow of settlers began. Four of the present States of New England were founded. Virginia waxed apace. The Carolinas grew up to the south of it, and Maryland to the north of it. The Dutch colonies 20 between, which had already absorbed the Swedish, were in their turn absorbed by the English. Pennsylvania was founded and, later still, Georgia. There were many wars with the Indians and with the dauntless captains whose banners bore the lilies of France. At last the British flag 25 flew without a rival in all eastern North America. Then came the successful struggle for national independence.

For half a century after we became a separate nation there was comparatively little immigration to this country. Then the tide once again set hither, and has flowed in 30 ever-increasing size until in each of the last three years a greater number of people came to these shores than had landed on them during the entire colonial period.