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BRAVO ROAD with DON FELIPE

October 17, 2016

E PLURIBUS UNUMARE WE ONE NATION OUT OF MANY?

By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca
Scholar in Residence (Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Public Policy), Western New Mexico University;
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English, Texas State University SystemSul Ross
I
What makes us Americans?

What has made the United States the country it has become?
There are myriad answers. All of them rightcada cabeza es
un mundoevery head is a world. My answer reflects a revaluation of a view Ive conceded which bears a more critical consideration than that proffered by Frederick Jackson Turner in
the early part of the 20th century. Admittedly, the United States
has transcended the continental bounds of its historical fortyand-eight configuration.
Taken as a whole, including its extended and extra-territorial boundaries, there are a number of
considerations that have contributed to the transcontinental evolution of the United States and the
seeming cohesiveness of the American people, therefrom. Politics is certainly not one of them
nor is religion. But the plaguing question remains: how to create a cohesive national identity
based on solidarity?
II
The Evolution of the West and the Transcontinental Railroad
Completing the final connection of the Central and Pacific
Railroads at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869, physically united the continental United States.
Frederick Jackson Turner thought it was the concept of the
West that made the United States and its people the nation that
it had become in the 19th century. That was certainly a contributing factor but not in the way that Turner characterized it.
Turner thought of the West as a territorial settlement. That was
part of it, but not all of it.
It was the concept of the West as a transcontinental movement from sea-to-shining-sea that
gave impetus to e pluribus unum. Still, completion of that transcontinental goal helped to cement
the notion of e pluribus unum in the consciousness of the American people.
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No matter the history and circumstances that led to the acquisition of 529,000 square miles of
Mexicos sovereign territory, acquisition of such a sizeable chunk of real estate imbued Americans with a sense of grandeur, of completion. That feat was to become Americas Palestinian
State with almost 3 million Mexicans who became Mexican Americans by conquest and by fiat.
Out of that expansion emerged the Transcontinental Railroad, linking east and west via rapid
transit that exceeded the stagecoach and ocean travel. Moreover, the Transcontinental Railroad
fueled the delivery of cargo from the Pacific to the Atlantic and all the space between, including
the Santa Fe Trail and points west from Chicago to San Francisco. Settlements sprang up around
train depots.
Dendritically rail lines spurred out to north and south from the trunk line of the Transcontinental
Railroad, spawning a feeling of oneness among Americans. Important to bear in mind is that the
feat of the Transcontinental Railroad was made possible by the toil of illegally smuggled Chinese
coolies and the Mexicans who had come with the dismembered Mexican territory. The Golden
Spike was made possible by Chinese rice and Mexican tortillas. Agriculture and ranching of the
west fed the rest of the nationstill does.
That the twain of East and West would never meet became memorialized as an aphorism of defeat and relegated to the American scrapheap of mind-forged manacles as the 18th century English poet William Blake defined those notions of self-imposed barriers that keep up fearfully in
place, never venturing into the unknown. The United States was on a roll. Come hell or high water, the United States would transcend the difficult. Its motto: The difficult we do immediately,
the impossible takes a little longer.
A Monetary System
Alexander Hamilton created the federal banking system. The
standardization and regulation of American money equalized
American business and commerce. The coin of the realm expedited
the purchase of goods and services in every part of the nation. Alexander Hamiltons Treasury and Federal Bank became the overseers and arbiters of monetary policy throughout the country. A
dollar was a dollar in Maine just as it was in New York, Miami,
Chicago, Saint Louis, Santa Fe, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. A
hit on the monetary system in any part of the country was a hit on
the entire system.
In 1791, Hamilton proposed that the United States charter a national bank in order to take care of Revolutionary War debt, create a single national currency, and stimulate the economy. Jefferson argued that the
creation of a national bank was not a power granted under the enumerated powers, nor was it necessary
and proper. Both gentlemen presented their arguments to Washington, and ultimately Washington agreed
with Hamilton.
Wilson, 2013

Wall Street came into being as a sustaining member of Main Street. The Gold Standard reigned
supreme until the 20th century; Silver, a close second. Sentineled, Fort Knox became the depository of the national geld. Gold was in its heaven; all was right with the world. Americans were
comforted by the banking systemthat euphoria gave them a sense of unity, of e pluribus unum.
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In his advice of political realism to the Prince on how to be a just though autocratic ruler Nicolo
Machiavelli adjured him to keep his troops from violating women, abstain from seizing the property of his citizens, and avoid the corruption of money. A sound monetary system assured the
Prince of the necessary income required to rule. Interestingly, Jefferson was wary of a national
bank.
The decision did not sit well with Jefferson who harbored ill will toward Hamilton until his death
at the hands of Aaron Burr. The necessary and proper clause part of Article I of the Constitution allowed for Congress to make laws and provisions that were not part of the enumerated
powers. Hamilton and Jefferson debated many times over what was meant by necessary and
proper. Hamilton took a more liberal reading of the clause and said that Congress should do anything it felt was necessary to carry out national responsibilities. Jefferson held that the clause
meant that Congress should only take actions that were absolutely necessary, and no more
(Ibid).
Electricity
Efforts to harness electricity in the United States began with Benjamin Franklins experiments
but did not become reality until 1831 with the work of the British scientist Michael Faraday. In
the United States Thomas Edison and his light bulb are credited with light in the streets and in
homes. Electricity made the darkness navigable creating a night life that lasted until dawn.
Though many are laid underground these days, electric lines are everywhere visible as testament
to the endurance of the technologyuntil something better comes along. Although electric light
have boosted the sense of social cohesiveness among the people e pluribus unum still remains a
consummation devoutly to be sought.
The Telegraph
Samuel Morse invented the telegraph which revolutionized communications in the United States. In 1844, Morse sent his first telegraph message, from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore, Maryland;
by 1866, a telegraph line had been laid across the Atlantic Ocean
from the U.S. to Europe. For a nation spanning 3,000 miles of a
continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, ease of communication
via the telegraph diminished distance considerably. San Francisco
was just a di-di-di da-da-da di-di-di away from New York City.
The telegraph made all kinds of transactions readily and speedily
possible. One could be 3,000 miles away instantaneously.
This was the beginning of words on a wire even though the words were in the form of coded
signals transmitted for long distances in a coded language (Morse Code). Being somewhere in
person was immaterial. Our words were there. The word telegraphmeaning sending a graphic
symbol over some distancewas coined by the French inventor Claude Chappe circa 1792.
Many concepts about telegraphy emerged between 1792-1836, including the use of electricity.
The genius of Samuel Morse (1836) in actualizing the transmission of information via an electric
current was a transformative global leap in the social structure of communities everywhere.
Communities of any size became ethereal via the telegraph. The travails of isolation waned in the
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face of instantaneous communication. Indeed What hath God wrought! as Morse asked in his
trial message from the Supreme Court chambers in Washington DC to his colleague Vail in Baltimore. Unum was becoming more possible every day as the telegraph made the concept more
manifest and palpable.
The first commercial telegraph line was completed between Washington, DC, and New York City in the
spring of 1846 . . . By 1851, there were over 50 separate telegraph companies operating in the United
States. (http://historywired.si.edu/detail.cfm?ID=324)

In 1856 Morses company became Western Unionstill with us today in transmogrified form.
The telegraph buoyed the sense of oneness to new heights in the United States.
The Post Office
The term post office originated in England in 1635 prior to which mail was conveyed by
post riders or couriers on horse from town to town, principally from Inn to Inn or person to
person. In the waning days of the British colonies in America, Benjamin Franklin was appointed
first Postmaster General by the Continental Congress. Expeditious delivery of mail not only catapulted Communications among the colonies but receded (if only virtually) the vast distances (at
the time) between the colonies. Over the years well into the 21st century, the post office was the
hallmark of communication in the United States, contributing to the unum of the nation.
Public Libraries
Before the advent of social media and its technologies, the largesse of the steel tycoon Andrew
Carnegie and his benevolence of the public library fomented a surge in establishing fonts of
knowledge for the public in the form of Carnegie Public Libraries which gave impetus to e pluribus unum but still weak in gel.
The Telephone and the Cellphone
Alexander Graham Bells first words into a telephone on March
10, 1876 ushered in a technological revolution in communication. The telephone brought people together audibly instantaneously. Its successor the cell phone, like the telegraph and the
telephone, continued to unite the pluribus.
The cell phone did not obliterate the telephone, only its initial
iteration of cords. The cell phone freed telephone users from the
statics of location to the freedom of phonic communication from anywhereprovided theres a
signal tower nearby. Today the cell phone is the emblem of that freedom. More importantly,
however, is the unique communication function of the cell phone to transmit text instantaneously
from one user to another. However, this capability has imperiled the Post Officenot entirely.
Principally, like its phone predecessor, the cell phone connects one cell phone user to another
cell phone user. Nevertheless, the cell phone seems to be unumizing the nation.
Radio and Television
Originally identified as Hertzian Waves in the 1890s, radio technology progressed rapidly in the
20h century bursting as a public utility in the 1920s with sports broadcasts from various American cities. From the 1930s on, radio programming delivered news and entertainment broadcasts
that have remained legends, contributing immensely to e pluribus unum. During World War II,
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radio did yeomans work in keeping the American public abreast of the war effort. While radio
has drifted into the function of a juke-box since the advent of television, it still carries on as a
news medium in car radios with a lessening role in e pluribus unum.
Considered one of the major mass media of the 20th century, television is as ubiquitous as electric lighttheres at least one set in every house. Successfully demonstrated in San Francisco in
1927, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) televised the opening of the New York World's
Fair in 1939 including a speech by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, first president to appear on television. At the moment, television appears to contribute the most toward e pluribus unum although
without the strength of a national glue.
The Computer and the Internet
Like the camera obscura (pinhole camera of the early 17 century), the computer has become the
magic box of today incorporating the capability of the typewriter, the textual transmission of the
cell phone, and the uniqueness of telegraphyall wrapped up with a keyboard, a screen, and a
printer. The smart computer has telephone functions and can transmit images via webcams. Here
too, while the computer challenges mainstay technology, it has created its own technological
niche in unumizing the nation, especially as a social medium and its ties to cellphones and the
burgeoning phenomena of Facebook.
Avionics
The Wright Brothers had it right in 1903 romping on the wind-swept beaches of North Carolina
hoping they could get their bicycle to fly. The physics was right; so was the concept. Missing,
was the technology. Like Galileo they persisted. And voila! Like the train at its inception, the
airplane has become the preferred mode of travel. Its fast and convenient. And has propelled
unumization forward in giant leaps but no gel. On trains people got to know each other; on
planes only gossamer smiles shrouding identities.
The Automobile
Henry Ford changed the world in 1908. He didnt invent the automobile; he made it accessible as
the Model T with 2 forward gears and a 20 horsepower engine. Americans chugged along on dirt
trails cum roads, waving gaily at each other as they whizzed by at 25 miles per hour. The auto
ushered in the age of automation. Again a giant leap for unumization but no gel despite appearances to the contrary. There was a social gap in the nation. Slavs congregated with Slavs,
Pols with Pols, Mexicans in barrios. Jews in ghettos, blacks in the hood. Occasional miscegenation popped up.
Nevertheless, the automobile created the need for roads which connected communities and made
long distance travel speedier and more family friendly. The Pennsylvania Turnpike became the
model for the Interstate highway system. While super highways, like railway lines, shortened
transcontinental travel, the gel of unity was still absent.
Libraries and Education
Andrew Carnegie did not invent librariestheyve been around since before Ashurbanipal--(ca.
668-627 B.C.) ruler of ancient Assyria. Coming as a dirt poor kid from Scotland to the U.S., by
the 1880s [Carnegie] built an empire in steel and then gave it all away: $60 million to fund a
system of 1,689 public libraries across the country (Stamberg).
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Carnegie Public Libraries helped to accelerate the concept of

public education in the United States, adding thereby to the expanding concept of e pluribus unum. While not driven by technology (per se), Carnegie Public Libraries enhanced the philosophy that an educated public served the best interests of a democratic nation.
The history of early American education was simply an extension of English education, though
not as encompassing or efficient, given the non-contiguous character of that colonial enterprise.
Still, early American education mirrored, in little, the goals and objectives of education in the
homeland. The basis of education in England and the American colonies thus lay secure within
the continuing traditions of an integrated culture6. And that continuity, however much it diminished in the 18th and 19th century, continued nevertheless to influence the evolving models of
American education.
Well into the 20th century, few American educators questioned the reality of that continuity, despite the visibly altered cultural and ethnic composition of the United States.7 In fact, the fiction
of that continuity grew stronger and more emphatic, institutionalizing unalterably the notions of
the common curriculum. In brief, the common curriculum fostered the come-and-get-it philosophy of education. That is, education--its goals and objectives clearly delineated and thriving
hardily from its past successes--was ready and waiting, available to one and all who wanted it.
The chief motivation was desire. Little thought was given to refashioning education to keep
apace with the times. For education, like the church, became an institution which had come to
believe in its own infallibility.
Bent thus on its own rituals, few of its priestly teachers and administrators were cognizant of the
hardening arteries already afflicting the body education they had unknowingly stifled. Attempts
to revivify the victim have included more of the same medicine which has only temporarily
resparked a breath of life in the afflicted body. No systematic or long-range cure for the ills of
education appears in the offing.
While Carnegie Public Libraries did not amend American public education, they helped in inculcating the necessity for American public education in furtherance of e pluribus unum.
The Military
Another institution not driven by technology per se has been the military which since its present
iteration in 1948 when President Truman desegregated the military services has borne considerable progress in unumizing itself as a model of social transformation. Though minorities have
served in American military forces since the founding of the nation, their service had not been
properly acknowledged and regulated until 1948. At the moment this appears to be the best model for the unumization of the nation in resolving the national question.
This is not an endorsement for the militarization of the nation nor an endorsement for Fortress
America. Historically, the model bears striking resemblance to the Pax Romana whose fruits are
evident in the nations it spawned still with us today. This is not a model recommended for repli6

cation today, just a model to consider how it worked and what knowledge we may cull from it in
our search for e pluribus unum.
III
IIIIIIIIII
One can see from the preceding the effects of technology on civic progress but the gel of human cohesion is absent. From the foregoing, it appears that the answer to the national question
may lie in technology, for the advent of the new seems to minimize social distance. A ver? A
larger national population does not bespeak unumization. Nor does the rise and use of a common languagelike English in the United States.
Language is not the glue of national unity, or unumization. Why not? Because the country is
fissured by race, religion, and politics and, so far, language has not made us one. Moreover, factions in countries speaking the same language are at each others throats waging internecine warfare.
The rise of special interest groups engendered by the fissures has made matters worse.. It appears
that we are nowhere near a solution to the national questionhow do we create e pluribus unum out of many?
The framers of the Constitution had to face the national question. This was the question Lenin grappled with in 1913the
same question puzzled Trotsky and Stalin. Much earlier in
American history, American leaders sought an answer to the
National Question as the first democracy to embrace a population of diverse peoples. Its the question facing most if not all
nations today in their efforts to create a unified nation based on
solidarity. All appearances to the contrary, the United States is
in limbo with this question.
Getting out of limbo will require dealing with the issues of race religion, and politics head on,
honestly, sin pelos en la lengua as Spanish-speakers saywithout mincing words.
Race
We must acknowledge that historically the United States was
founded on white racial principles, not on high-blown concepts
of human inclusion as so many Americans have come to believe. In the beginning blacks were commodities of slavery. Indians were too savage to be considered as citizens of a civilized
society. Other people of color were marginalized. The nation
was founded on white rebellion to favor white privilege. One
can see that the words of the Constitution, for example, reflect a
philosophy devoutly to be wished as Hamlet would put it.
The affinity of the Constitution is aristocratic and chauvinistic
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which is why Americans sanctioned Indian Wars and Indian genocide, the Chinese Exclusion
Act, and internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II. While slavery was
constitutionally ended in the 19th century, Jim Crow exclusionary laws prevailed until well into
the 20th century. Mexican Americans suffered the same exclusionary discrimination as African
Americansincluding lynching and mass executions. At Portland State in 1975 Toni Morrison
exclaimed to her audience that Racial ignorance is a prison from which there is no escape because there are no doors!
When public policy is based on lies and misconceptions, a mentality emerges that those people are undeserving (ALelia Bundles, Know Your History: Understanding Racism in the
U.S., Aljazeera Magazine, 15 August, 2015). The rash of black men being murdered with impunity in the streets of American cities is only the tip of the iceberg of submerged racism in
American society.
Religion
Along with race, religion is an issue that must be resolved in dealing with the National Question. The First Amendment to the Constitution reads: Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Thats a constitutional restriction on Congress not on the public where wholesale efforts by religious groups assail each
other without restrictions. Todays Islamophobia is putting Muslims through the wringer the
same way Catholics were put through the wringer earlier in the 20th century. Mosques are being
torched like black churches were fairly recently. Synagogues are regularly graffitied. In many
communities Churches are now as numerous as bars once were, each touting its priority on salvation This is not a condemnation on their blight, merely acknowledgement of chacun son gout
everyone to their own taste. .
Religion can often cloud reality and impede interreligious communication. Religious history is
replete with the wars of gods and men. This situation is not any better in countries with a state
religion. Faith healers dont make it any easier. The worst of religious fervor were probably the
Crusades. The clash of religious fervor is usually over religious values, oftentimes over niggling
interpretations which oftentimes create chasms of disdain and distrust.
Politics
Heres the nub of creating one out of manypoliticsas is evident by the American political landscape today. Politics have
always been contentious but nothing like the flaying of its contemporary iteration. Ay caray! One mans mead is another mans
poison. If two political parties can create the mle of todays
political shenanigans, imagine what a bevy of political parties
would do.
At the moment, Politics is what is keeping us from becoming one nation of the many. As I see it,
political parties are the bane of politics everywhere. In the United States one would think that
whats good for the country would be paramount politically. Nah! Its political party first. Forget

the country. In politics everywhere its my way or the highway! Whats the alternative? Quien
sabe? No telling where the Delphic Oracle is today. Maybe the Ouija Board has the answer?
One For the Road
What about the National Question? Hm? The worlds a playpen. The kidsll work it out!
REFERENCES
Stamberg, Susan, How Andrew Carnegie Turned His Fortune Into a Library Legacy,
Heard on Morning Edition, August 1, 20133:00 AM ET.
Wilson, Elise Stevens, The Battle over the Bank: Hamilton v. Jefferson, The New Nation:
1783-1815, The Gilder Lerhman Institute of American History, 1/16/2013.
_________________________________________________
Copyright 2016 by Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca. All photos used are in the public domain.
Filed Under: Blogs, Bravo Road with Don Felpe Tagged With: Bravo Road, Don Felipe de
Ortego, Principles of the nation, The American Identity, What is an American?