Editorial Notes by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 18, 1901

Editorial Notes

By Editor

“America, the Highest Grade of Everything.”

THE latest papers bring news that “Mr. Whitney ‘wins the Derby.’” This calls for a remark; not that we care a leather sixpence who wins, or who doesn’t win, the great horse-racing stakes, known as “The Derby,” but the comments it calls forth are interesting. Mr. Wm. C. Whitney is the ex-secretary of the United States Navy, and a magnate in street-railway, and whisky-trust affairs; hence American papers indulge in considerable exultation over the fact of America’s triumph in winning the Derby. Thus the New York Journal finds much to be thankful for in the victory. It says:—

“The latest American victory on the English turf, lacks only one thing to make it complete: The winner was handled by an American trainer, ridden by an American jockey, and raced under American colors; but the horse was English. . . . But in one sense, this may be considered a triumph after all. This country has grown great by disregarding the accident of birth, and taking the best of all lands: Alexander Hamilton was a West Indian; Paul Jones, a Scotchman; Albert Gallatin, a Genevan; Andrew Carnegie, a Scotchman; and Nicola Tesla, a Montenegrin, but both [the latter] were created to be Americans; and therefore they are Americans.”

“Volodyovsky [the winning horse] deserves to be an American horse; and therefore Mr. Whitney’s money has made him one, just as Mr. Morgan’s money has made the Leyland fleet an American line! And this sort of Americanizing is one of the things that are spreading terror through Europe. It is a case of sifting out the fittest. The best of everything, wherever it originates, becomes American; the worst is allowed to remain foreign. At this rate, America will soon cease to be a geographical expression—it will be simply a term . . . for the highest grade of everything.”