dots-menu
×

Home  »  New York  »  Page 106

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). New York. 1906.

Page 106

had done good service in arousing the desire for freedom, and in teaching men—if often only by painful example and experience—to practise the self-restraint which is as necessary as self-confidence to any community desirous of doing its own governmental work.
  After a couple of years of practical interregnum, New York received another governor, one Robert Hunter, whose term lasted until 1720. He was a wise and upright man, who did justice to all, though, if anything, favoring the popular party. But the personality of the governor was rapidly becoming of less and less consequence to New York as the city and province grew in size. The condition of the colony and the policy of the British King and Parliament were the really important factors of the problem.
  About this time there was a great influx of Germans from the Rhine provinces. They were poor peasants who had fled from before the French armies; and while most went on into the country, a considerable number remained in New York, to add one more to the many elements in its population. As they were ignorant and poverty-stricken, the colonists of English, Dutch, and Huguenot blood looked down on and despised them, not wholly without reason. One feature of the settlement of America is that each mass of immigrants feels much distrust and contempt for