Posthumous Perambulations on the Peculiarities of Progress

Mark Twain

Hailing from the earthly realm of Missouri, Samuel Langhorne Clemens—better known as Mark Twain—was a humorist, journalist, and novelist of the highest caliber. He famously shuffled off this mortal coil in 1910, but the grave, it seems, couldn't hold a fellow with so much left to say. Now, a spectral scribe, he drifts through the modern age, observing with his signature wit and a touch of spectral bewilderment the goings-on of a world that has, in his ghostly opinion, gone somewhat astray since he last drew breath.

Well, bless my soul and hang me for a horse thief, if it ain't a peculiar sensation, this here floating about the ether, having shuffled off this mortal coil some ninety-odd years ago! 

There was a time, mind you, when I'd proclaim with the certainty of a saint at a revival, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." That's what I said, plain as day. But now, having risen from the grave these many years after those pesky rumors of my demise proved, for once, actually accurate, I can't help but reckon that even ol' Twain's convictions, like a stale piece of pie, might stand an adjustment or two.

You see, in the fledgling days of this grand republic of ours, the sheer, unfathomable vastness of our landmass fairly begged for a robust population to fill its empty spaces. Immigration, from every dusty hamlet and bustling port across the globe, wasn't merely some high-minded moral imperative; no sir, it was a practical necessity, as plain as the nose on your face. Who else, pray tell, was going to break the sod and till the stubborn fields? Who was to lay the bricks for our burgeoning cities and sweat in the infernal din of our factories? A small, self-important coterie of privileged white men, all of them of a sterling Anglo-Saxon pedigree? Why, to have limited ourselves to such a stringent, narrow-minded minority would have condemned us, sure as sunrise, to centuries of stagnation, while our prodigious land sat derelict and wasted, like an unplowed fortune. Our great nation, bless its colossal heart, is too grand in size; any path forward that didn't throw wide its doors, with warm open arms, to the various peoples of the various nations of Earth would have sealed our fate in squander and squalor.

Mark that down.

Times change, of course. I lived a life, a long one at that, spent mostly in the business of witnessing and commenting on that peculiar phenomenon of changing times. And now, as I drift, bodiless as a puff of cigar smoke, from one jarring scene to another in this bewildering 21st-century America, I can't help but feel a chill. It's as though that noble experiment in generosity and diversity, that grand idea of a melting pot, may have taken on a life of its own—a rather sinister sort of life, mind you—one that has utterly overtaken the original promise and swallowed it whole.

For it appears, in this confounding 21st century, that many of these foreigners now washing up on our golden shores harbor precious little concern for that good old ethic of hard work. They seem to hold our history and heritage in scant regard, though they’re quite eager, it seems, to claim a plump portion of its inheritance. And as for assimilation? Becoming an indistinguishable, contributing cog in the great American machine? Bless my whiskers, they show no apparent interest whatsoever in such a notion. All creatures, great and small, are first and foremost self-interested, that much is certain. But the peculiar interests of this new breed of immigrant, I tell you, are of a particularly distressing and frankly, un-American sort.

I had the singular pleasure recently—such as a departed spirit can have pleasures—of learning about a truly great man, a magnificent U.S. President, who was snatched from his office and from this world far, far too early. John F. Kennedy, that fellow, once uttered words as proud and true and right as any man could ever conjure to describe the very nature and spirit of the American nation and its people. He said, and I quote, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask instead what you can do for your country." Now, that is the pure sentiment, the very marrow of what made this nation great! But this new breed of immigrant, bless their grasping souls, does not seem to share this sacred sentiment. They wish to skirt the rules, it seems. They wish to enter in the dead of the night, by hook or by crook, sneaking in like a guilty conscience. And then, by thunder, they wish to partake in the hospitality of our welfare, without, it seems, taking upon themselves the responsibilities required to earn our fabulous largesse. It's enough to make a dead man groan.

Floating here in the ether, a macabre specter, I am genuinely saddened by the present condition of what was once a great ideal, one I held dear in my very heart of hearts. This, my friend, is not the America I left behind when I finally succumbed to that pesky heart attack. Our optimistic promise of a grand melting pot, our great American experiment, has been taken for granted, and worse, it has been taken advantage of. Perhaps that Trump fellow has the right idea after all, crass as he may be, like a bull in a china shop. Not every experiment, you see, is a terrific triumph. Optimism and generosity, while noble virtues, are not guarantors of success. Perhaps the time has come, for the living, to pause and reflect on where this bewildering path has taken us, and where it will lead us further if we persist without proper reflection.