204 THE GREAT NORTH-WEST 



self-assertion of the men I am writing of. As I do not 

 withhold my admiration for that in Uncle Sam's character 

 which is worthy of him ; neither do I feel called on 

 to conceal his faults. I wish to give none offence ; but I 

 shall speak plainly since the charge has been made that 

 I have misrepresented him. I write for those who have not 

 been able to visit America and see for themselves. A 

 stranger in the land is sure of a hospitable welcome ; 

 but that is not true which one of their poets has 

 said, that the portals of the United States have 

 never been closed to the "meanest child" of Adam. 

 Apart from the fact that men have been persecuted in 

 America, as in other countries, for mere political 

 or religious opinion, and that Sam's treatment of the 

 negro down to a comparatively recent date was a dis- 

 grace to his manhood, the portals of the United States 

 have been closed, or denied, to all who could not show 

 the almighty dollar, and are closed at this hour to those 

 whom misfortune has deprived of the full use of their 

 limbs. Not a month has elapsed since a man was 

 expelled the country because he had lost one of his arms, 

 and it was not until he had shown that he possessed 

 much property in the country (and then with delay and 

 difficulty) that he was permitted to enter it at all. It is 

 to be remembered that, poet or politician, all that Sam 

 says of himself may not be remarkable for its strict 

 veracity. 



