34 



The Journal of Heredity 



toward right and justice into a system 

 of opposition and lead them to at 

 least a partial victory. Thus by his 

 restless, irresistible energy and sym- 

 pathy with the fundamental tenden- 

 cies of the people, he became the finest 

 example of the creative influence of a 

 personalitN" in our national life. 



REGNANT FAMILIES OF THE PRESENT DAY 



This is the supreme achievement in 

 the great epic of American develop- 

 ment. It is the epic of amiies battling 

 ceaselessly to conquer adverse forces of 

 nature, and working imremittingly for 

 the realization of ideals, which have 

 first been conceived, or at least phrascfl 

 by a few great personalities, then 

 incorporated in the institutions founded 

 by them and fructified by their spirit. 



When the history of the immigrant 

 stocks of the nineteenth century is 

 written, it will present a picture quite 

 as striking for its share in the realiza- 

 tion of the .American ideal as the earlier 

 strivings of the liberty-Uning, right- 

 abiding migrant to our shores. The 

 bone and sinew of our nation today is 

 largely made up of comparatively new 

 stocks. Names such as Frick, Carne- 

 gie, Johnson, Kahn, Walsh, Leiter, 

 Lewisohn, have an increasing represen- 

 tation among our capitalists, political 

 leaders, patrons of science and the 

 arts. 



We need not greatl\' worry o\er the 

 possibility of the "Fall of the American 

 Saxtjn" nor of the decadence of certain 

 colonial stocks. Much of their best 

 blorxl has fused with the best of the 

 incoming strains, so that their af)titu(les 

 and gifts can ne\er be lost. Added to 

 this, under the rigorous conditions of 

 frontier life, it frequenth' hap|)ene(l 

 that the best representatives of a\erage 

 stocks came together and founded lines 

 having superior endowment. A like 

 pnjcess to that observed in the (lai- 

 l)orne family has undoubtedly repeated 

 itself man\- times if in lesser degri'e 

 under the urge of jxTsonal ambition or 

 motives more altruistic. 



"The family was for six hundred 

 years more or less prominent in the 

 warring, intriguing life of the Scottish 



border. In the early part of the seven- 

 teenth century it was represented by 

 three sons. The eldest was Thomas, 

 indolent, shy, melancholy, who suc- 

 ceeded to the famiK' estates, where he 

 li\ed a retired life, taking no active 

 part in affairs of state. His line became 

 obscure tillers of the .soil where a few 

 generations before their fathers had 

 ruled ius lords. The youngest son was 

 Robert, wh(jse ambitions did not rise 

 al)o\e the station of a London clothes- 

 dealer, and whose descendants, if he 

 had any, have become ctmipletely lost 

 to the rest of the family. 



William Claiborne, the second son, 

 came to Jamestown in 1621 as Royal 

 .Sur\e\()r and became successively Cap- 

 tain, Colonel, Secretary and eventually 

 Parliamentary Secretary of Virginia. 

 He is described as a man of powerful, 

 magnetic personality. Resourceful, 

 tenacious and indomitable in his large 

 designs, he perhaps more than any 

 other single man shaped the history of 

 the colon\- through a half-centur\- of 

 stormy contention with her ri\al sistei 

 colony of Maryland. 



His children and grandchildren mar- 

 ried into some of the best Virginia 

 families and their descendants number 

 many men of mark. Among the 998 

 persons enumerated in the Claiborne 

 genealogy, we find 22 who were army 

 officers, 19 who ser\ed their country in 

 a legislative or administrative capacity 

 and 7 who were justices or judges. The 

 list is as noteworthy for the absence of 

 gifts, artistic and scientific as it is for 

 the presence of those which make for 

 military and political leadership. We 

 must conclude that the daring, per- 

 se\ering qualities which carried their 

 possessors to success in new and diffi- 

 cult N'entures at the same time made 

 possible frecjuent alliances with fami- 

 lies having high similar potentialities 

 and this selective mating pnxluced an 

 innisiial ninnber conforming to the 

 original type. 



( ON I KIIU TIONS IKOM lOKMI'.K (iENERA- 

 TIONS 



Tod.iN', .\nu-rica's policies as con- 

 ceixi'd and i-l.ibor.iti-d l)\' such leaders 



