Walt Whitman speaks . . . against Trump!
From Walt Whitman Speaks, edited by Brenda Wineapple, to be published by the Library of America in April:
America must welcome allChinese, Irish, German, pauper or not, criminal or notall, all, without exceptions: become an asylum for all who choose to come. We may have drifted away from this principle temporarily but time will bring us back. The tide may rise and rise again and still again and again after that, but at last there is an ebbthe low water comes at last. Think of itthink of it: how little of the land of the United States is cultivatedhow much of it is still utterly untilled. When you go West you sometimes travel whole days at lightning speed across vast spaces where not an acre is plowed, not a tree is touched, not a sign of a house is anywhere detected. America is not for special types, for the caste, but for the great mass of peoplethe vast, surging, hopeful, army of workers. Dare we deny them a homeclose the doors in their facetake possession of all and fence it in and then sit down satisfied with our systemconvinced that we have solved our problem? I for my part refuse to connect America with such a failuresuch a tragedy, for tragedy it would be.
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I anticipate the day when some wise man will start out to argue that two and two are not four but five or something else: history proving that two and two couldnt be four: and probability, too: yes, more than that, the wise man will prove it out of his own consciousnessprove it for somebodyfor a few: they will believe in hima body of disciples will believe: then, presto! you have a new religion!
[link:https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/04/18/walt-whitman-alone/|