PASTORIUS, NOT FREDERICK, THE IDEAL GERMAN.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") Sin,—In 1895.I called on the German Ambassador in Washington. but he being out, I spoke to the Chancellor sub-
stantially as follows :—" The French have made us a magnifi- cent present, Liberty Enlightening the World,' which has been placed at the entrance of New York Harbour. It would be a graceful act for your Emperor to give us an equally majestic statue—a replica of the Germania,' the ' Yacht am Rhein '—in recognition of the fact that thousands of Germans have found in these United States, not only happy homes, but health and opportunities to develop their best characteristics. And then, too, the reflex influence of their prosperity and the development of their freedom-loving nature have been most beneficial to their native land. Let this memorial—this Denkmal—be placed in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, on ground once owned by the first German settler in America; the land, namely, of Francis Daniel Pastorius, whose arrival on October 3rd, 1683, is annually celebrated by Germans from Maine to California." The Chancellor replied, "Do you know, Mr. Smith, what you are asking for ? Do you know how many tons of bronze there is iu that statue of the ' Germania' ? "—" No, and that is no matter. You have plenty of cannon taken in battle." All the same, we have not been offered a memorial of this peace-loving German from the
Palatinate ; this Quaker, who was the first to pen a formal ecclesiastical protest against slavery ; this poet, teacher, and erudite man, who with twelve other Germans and Hollanders founded " the German Town near Philadelphia":— "Those who wend from clime to clime
Leave fossil footsteps on the mud of time: Names of loved homes! the new receive the same, And so we know from whence and when they came."
Pastorius was the agent of the Frankfort Land Company that took up a large tract from Penn to resell to German immigrants, and hence we have " Frankford" (on the New York branch of
the Pennsylvania Railroad) also near Philadelphia. Pastorius came from near Mannheim, and " Manheim Street" in the German Town is a name—a footstep, so to speak—resonant of Pastorius. Again, the charming dell through which a bounding little stream finds its way into the Wissahicken answers to the name of Cresheim, reminding one for ever that Pastorius came from near the home of the Crees, Cresheim to wit. It would be much more consistent with the fitness of things if the German Emperor would give a Denkmat of this man of peace, this man who made the proto-protest against
slavery, this learned poet, vineyardist, teacher, and lover of his kind (whose motto was " Vinum, Linum et Textrinum "), than a statue of a man whose character and deeds are not
venerated by Americans. Frederick may be a man after William's own heart ; probably he is ; but William's man is not the American's ideal of what is best and noblest in the German character.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Moseley, Birmingham, England. HORACE J. SMITH
(of Germantown).
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