Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.
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| From 1689 onward, the antagonisms of race were only secondary causes of party and factional hostility in New YorkThe different nationalities remained far less stubbornly apart than was the case in the neighboring colony of Pennsylvania for instance. Even when the bulk of one nationality was found to be opposed to the bulk of another, the seeming race antagonism was usually merely incidental, the real line of division being drawn with regard to other matters, such as divided the aristocratic and popular parties elsewhere. No element of the population kept obstinately aloof from the rest as did a large section of the Pennsylvanian Germans, to their own lasting harm. The different races gradually grew to speak the same language, and then intermarried and merged together; for in America the intermarriage and fusion of races follows, but does not precede, their adoption of a common tongue. The Revolution and the preliminary agitation greatly hastened this fusion; but it was already well under way before the first mutterings of the Revolution were heard. |