HISTORY OF ABORIGINAL AMERICANS IS RECOUNTED BY UNION ESSAYIST FROM VIEWPOINT OF SCIENTISTS IN FUTURE AGES

"Through the control of communications in the American Revolution, the Southern party was victorious and the negroes won complete control of rail traffic, so that no important train was allowed to start without their representative. An incidental result of the conflict was the secession of England from the Union; she declared neutrality between the factions and solved her traffic problems by constructing miniature railways which could be managed by persons of average ability and color."

The above quotation is taken from the winning essay in the prize essay competition conducted by the Union. It was written by Idris Deane Jones 1G., of Oxford, England. Jones is a tutor at Merton College, Oxford, and is now studying at the University on a leave of absence. The prize-winning essay is printed herewith.

The following article, entitled "American Aboriginal Documents," is a review of the official report of the Abyssinlan University's excavations which have been recently carried on at Cambridge, Newhaven, and Princeton, in North America. Ruins have been found which are believed to date back to the year 2000 A.D., or even earlier.

Undoubtedly there is much in this Report that is startling and possibly painful to orthodox believers in traditional cosmology; and yet it cannot be too often emphasized that the readjustment of some of the incidental tenets of our religion to meet the progress of modern science need not, and does not impair the fundamental structure of our faith. The only iconoclastic result of this expedition will be to destroy permanently the influence of those pompous and inaccurate historiasters of the last century who have falsified the sequence and meaning of past events by their lack of scientific method, their reliance on traditional literature and their wilful neglect of contemporary documents and archaeological evidence. Their day, or rather, their night is over; for the literary dilletante cannot face the pure light of historical truth which emanates from this epoch-making report.

Newhaven Was Former Place of Rest

The investigations were carried out on the East coast of North America by three parties. The most northerly site explored is Cambridge, an amorphous section of the large city of Greater Dublin; Newhaven lies some distance to the South in a slightly less intolerable climate, while the small settlement of Princeton, (which at first seemed to provide the most promising material but subsequently proved of little interest), is the most southerly point reached by the expedition. Apparently this last site, planned on most attractive lines, was not permanently inhabited by scholars, but was used as a place of rest. There is, however, some geological evidence which points to the existence of a large training school of physical culture in connection with the prevalent totalistic religion (see Report under Bunker, Tiger). This is an interesting example of the new light shed on the social history of Neotribal man by the thorough researches of the best critical brains of today; but this short review can only indicate those results which will necessitate a sweeping revision of our views on outstanding problems of American history. They affect three distinct periods:--

1) the Pilgrim's Progress. i. e., the discovery of America by the Irish saint Columba in 1492.

2) the American Revolution, or the Civil War.

3) the End of the World, or the Total Eclipse) (contemporary names given to the great drought of 1925 which caused the breakdown of American civilization).

Architecture Shows Early Culture

The disposal of the Columba myth illustrates admirably the methods of the expert archaeologists and the ineluctable force of their deductions. They examined in detail the large collegiate buildings (probably monastic) of Newhaven and Cambridge and compared them with similar institutions in or near Europe. It had been hitherto assumed that this phase of American architecture was a product of the Catholic revival of the twentieth century, but such hasty conclusions must now be discarded, for the magnificent Gothic ruins at Newhaven indubitably attest the existence of a flourishing scholastic culture as early as the first years of the fifteenth century. Henceforth we must antedate the permanent colonization of the so-called New World by at least a hundred years, unless we blind ourselves to such minute and convincing proofs as these.

A general survey should convince any intelligent person, apart from the judgment of experts, that these buildings could never have been a late copy made in the twentieth-century manner of servile imitation, for they reveal a mixture of styles and experiments which show a genuine creative spirit despite an obvious lack of technical knowledge.

Mediaeval Guildsmen Were Pioneers

This ratio of art and mechanics is exactly reversed in later American architecture. No man in his right senses could affirm that an Americanising architect allowed the interior measurements of the rooms to show such discrepancies, and the buttresses and walls to reduce the windows to such inadequate dimensions. And so the mediaeval guildsmen of Newhaven will henceforward take their place in history as true pioneers, who built rather by inspiration than by contract; and their work will be another proof of the triumph of spirit over matter, worthy to rank with Egyptian Karnak and our own Gimp. For five centuries countless generations of poor scholars wore down the hollowed steps from their pristine rectangularity and looked out upon the Arctic winter from their dim cells, while fierce storms shattered the leaded casements and necessitated hurried and unskilful repairs by the numb hands of the student plumbers.

Case for Irish Hegemone Totters

If the age of this single building be proved, the whole case for Columba and Irish cultural hegemone falls to the ground; and there can be no possible doubt that the combined proofs of the expedition will satisfy the most skeptical or most prejudiced minds. The chemists have left no stone untreated and have found that the deposits and corrosions of several centuries clearly differentiate the stonework of the monastery from the later structures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries which were built around the venerable tower of the great mother-pile. Corroborative evidence, if it were necessary, can be produced from Cambridge, which was probably at that time an important centre of learning, though it suffered many vicissitudes in its later history (see index under "Business School circular No. 47" on 'The present situation in the Bakery Trade"). There is one remarkable piece of primitive architecture which apparently served as the monastic refectory. It shows marked Byzantine influence and in its turn became a model for several college chapels in Oxford and Cambridge, England. It seems likely that the style was carried thither by one John Harvard, who was expelled from the monastery, for his peculiar religious views and founded in England a community called Emmanuel College, where thought was intended to be free. He still retained some affection for his native place in spite of its rigorous discipline, for the little colony which grew up around him assumed the name of Cambridge. This incident also confirms the growing suspicion of the old dictum that American decadence was due to religious toleration, for this habit does not seem to have been widespread at this or at any other period of their history.

Pullman Negroes Won in Revolution

The study of the American Revolution will receive great stimulus from the Report, for the wealth of new material may make possible at last a definite solution of long vexed problems. This short sketch cannot do more than give the barest outlines of the long struggle according to the fresh discoveries. No definite principle on either side can be distinguished, and the old shibboleths of Slavery and States' Rights must now be relegated to the limbo of historical illusions together with the Trade Routes of Troy. Both public and private documents prove that the white troops fought loyally for their masters and that "white slave" discontent never reached the proportions of a rebellion; while the constitutional question was a mere pretext for economic grievances which gradually became more prominent, until the war was fought out simply to secure control of the railroads. The Jewish or Nordic government had the advantage in financial strength and man-power, but the Negroes were a compact body known as the Solid South and had superior technical skill in working the railroad system. Through this control of communications the Southern party was victorious, and the Negroes won complete control of rail traffic, so that no important train was allowed to start without their representative, and in many parts of the country special coaches were reserved for them. An incidental result of the conflict was the secession of England from the Union; she declared neutrality between the factions and solved her traffic problems by constructing miniature railways which could be managed by persons of average ability and colour.

Totemism Rampant Save in Cambridge

Another large section of the Report deals with American social life in the period immediately preceding the final catastrophe, and it should furnish fascinating reading not only for the social scientist but also for students of folklore and primitive religion. The survival of totemism as late as the twentieth century has often been disputed, but is now established as a historical fact. Newhaven and Princeton were the homes of the Bulldog and Tiger totems respectively, and these wild bands fought incessantly over the ground that had been formerly consecrated to learning. Evidence of totems at Cambridge is lacking;--there is frequent mention of a Crimson College, but this refers to a Catholic school for girls. (The name originates in a local euphemism for the "scarlet woman"). The remains of a large library may also account for the non-existence of a totem.

In this library were found a few million scattered newspapers which give valuable information about methods of education. They all reflect the simple faith and high purpose of the American people even in time of prosperity, and they were chiefly used by the government as educational instruments, e.g. to introduce a simplified version of the English language, with a sprinkling of mediaeval Latin to mollify the Irish. This process was called Americanisation and was carried into effect by the abolition of the old grammars and by the substitution of a logical system of spelling known as the crossword puzzle. The system was very popular since there were no exceptions to its rules, but it was eventually superseded by the simpler method of proclaiming Erse the official language. Gaelic won immediate success since it had no rules, being previously confined to abuse.

Twentieth Century Was Age of Faith

In one respect the expedition has confirmed, rather than disturbed traditional accounts of American life, in that its investigations of religious life in the twentieth century corroborate with interesting details the claim of that period to be known as the Age of Faith. Perhaps the most striking feature of the time was the survival and even the re-juvenescence of the Inquisition. It was temporarily in the hands of the Methodists, and the Catholics were naturally indignant at this breach of tradition. There seems to have been general sympathy with this protest; for the Americans have always tried to be a legal nation ever since Edmund Burke told them that they were such, and so public opinion criticised the Methodist tribunals for not having a consistent body of Canon Law to guide their decisions in the varied cases which came before them. Therefore the institution fell into discredit and received the contemptuous nickname of Ku Klux Klan, a corruption of an old wrestling term "Catch-as-catch-can".

Druggists Were Ministering Angels

However, outside the older societies, a religious revival grew up spontaneously in the local centres of life and became universal with remarkable rapidity. It even penetrates the commercial organizations of the country so thoroughly indeed that the travelling "agents provocateurs" of the various merchant guilds revived the Rule of the Mendicant Friars in all save one respect, while the guild Chambers of each district devoted a large part of their interests and revenues to philanthropic activities. The old inns were transformed into Churches of Community Service and richly endowed, so that their previous functions became almost incidental. Wayside shrines, often of a rich and peculiar beauty, everywhere adorned the countryside and added to the general welfare by serving as gasoline filling-stations. The cult strongly emphasized reverence to local saints, who were all bidden by their Order to practice the trades either of grocer or of druggist; and every public conveyance bore testimony to the humble but influential ministering angels. This spiritual movement finally disposed of the economic man and even made some progress toward suppressing the economic housewife. Its importance has not yet been grasped by Abyssinian historians, but the Report does full justice to it and lays especial stress on its international as well as internal effects.

Prohibition Was Merely a Gesture

This section of the Report is most suggestive of a new approach to the problem of the causes of American decadence. Although such a general question did not come within the scope of this investigation, it continually presented itself to the members of the expedition as they examined the conditions of society immediately before the fatal drought. The outworn theory of the Analytical Jurists, that the Eighteenth Amendment sapped the morale of the population, is obviously untenable in the light of modern research which has proved that the Fourteenth and Eighteenth Amendments were intended as moral gestures, similar to the Laws of Nature and the Fourteen Points, and thus were carefully removed from the contamination of practical politics. The Cambridge newssheets, than which there can be no more contemporary (and therefore infallible) authorities, confirm the actual impotence of this transcendental principle.

Monroe Doctrine Curbs Philanthropy

The University experts, as befits cautious historians, offer no hasty and unscholarly explanation, but are inclined to believe in the theory of a plurality of causes of the Decline. However, their study of American religion has enabled them to disclose one of these causes, which may have been of the first importance. The discovery also clears up an obscurity which has long puzzled students of American history--the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine. It is now established that the doctrine originated in a Protocol issued by the League of Nations a few years after the European War of 1914-18, and its essential clause runs as follows:--

"The non-American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future philanthropy by any American person or power."

The universal storm of protest as revealed in now extant newspapers seems to show how deeply this fatal restriction of the chief incentive of American business was resented, and how widespread was the resultant depression. None, when faced with such evidence, can deny the probability that this psychological catastrophe may have broken the spirit of an emotional people, and left them defenceless against material disaster; but much hard work remains to be done after the manner of these brilliant discoveries before all the mists of the past are blown away, and the aboriginal American is seen and understood by the modern world as realistically as he is portrayed in his daily journals and similar repositories of Historical Truth