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The Current Crisis
Autumn in New York
That means it’s time for the great Columbus Day Parade.
WASHINGTON — Autumn in New York — that sounds like the title of a song! In fact, it sounds like the first line of a song, and so it is. Autumn is a lovely time of year in many places, but for me my favorite place at this time of year is New York City. As the song goes, it seems “so inviting.” And one of the great events marking autumn in New York is the Columbus Day Parade. It reminds us of what a great Melting Pot it has been, and, one hopes, it always will be.
Christopher Columbus opened the New World to European migration in 1492. He prefigured the spirit of America with his daring, his sense of duty, and his piety. Samuel Eliot Morison, in the second volume of his two-volume history, The European Discovery of America, portrayed Columbus as a truly heroic figure, an exemplary captain of the ocean waves, to introduce us all to the admirable adventure that America has proved to be. Sixty-eight years ago the Italian-Americans in New York City’s Columbus Citizens Foundation gave Columbus a fitting memorial in the Columbus Day Parade, and this year on October 8 once again all Americans can come out to honor him and share in the glory that is the American Melting Pot.
There will be 35,000 marchers representing over one hundred groups. Almost a million people will be spectators as the parade makes its way down Fifth Avenue. It will be a great day to be an Italian-American, and by sundown there will be a little bit of Italy in all of us: pasta, veal scalapini, frutti di mare, and a glass of vino, possibly two. The Italians made their contribution to the American Melting Pot, and we are all grateful for their contributions: cooking, style, their innovations in such areas as the arts, the building trades, and investment banking. This year the Columbus Citizens Foundation is honoring the philanthropist and investment innovator, Mario J. Gabelli, as the 68th annual parade’s Grand Marshal. He has been one of the good guys in banking for years, and his philanthropy in education, health, and community service only emphasize it.
Larry Auriana, himself a great investor and philanthropist and an eminence at the Columbus Day festivities for many years, makes the point that “Italians did not come to America to change it. They came to America to participate in the opportunities presented by this great country.” They came for what America offered, for instance, ideas of freedom, of the rights of man, of the dignity of the individual before the state. In the heyday of Italian immigration many Italians were leaving the old world where they were often treated practically as serfs, for America, where they had rights and freedom that only a handful of Europeans even envisioned. In those days—basically beginning late in the 18th century—American exceptionalism was the marvel of enlightened people everywhere. America was, as Ronald W. Reagan said, “a shining city upon a hill.”
The Columbus Day Parade is a happy time to be in New York City and it is not a bad time to reflect on the exceptionalism of America. Today we have living in America ingrates that would sneer at exceptionalism. They and popinjays living elsewhere attribute to America all sorts of ills: racism, corporatism, inequality, militarism. It all gets quite esoteric. Yet it has little to do with real American life.
America is still Ronald Reagan’s shining city upon a hill. It can be improved. It can be made worse. It is in constant need of attention so as to be sure that it is still functioning according to the vision of our Founding Fathers. That is where the Tea Party comes in. Yet it is still the world’s best hope. And on this Columbus Day I am going down to Fifth Avenue and I shall let out a yell for an Italian guy from Genoa who got his boats from the Spanish and was idolized in Paris. Christopher Columbus seems to have anticipated the United Nations by four centuries!
About the Author
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of The American Spectator. He is the author of The Death of Liberalism, published by Thomas Nelson Inc. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller Boy Clinton: the Political Biography; The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton; The Liberal Crack-Up; The Conservative Crack-Up; Public Nuisances; The Future that Doesn’t Work: Social Democracy’s Failure in Britain; Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House; The Clinton Crack-Up; and After the Hangover: The Conservatives’ Road to Recovery.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (25) | Leave a comment
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Trish| 10.4.12 @ 8:48AM
Name the three ships that brought Columbus and his crew to the New World.
Trish| 10.4.12 @ 8:48AM
Surely you remember.
Trish| 10.4.12 @ 8:49AM
Nina
Pinta
Santa Maria
Trish| 10.4.12 @ 8:51AM
I love the rhythmic musicality of their names.
Italian--la lingua bella.
KyMouse| 10.4.12 @ 9:37AM
"I saw three ships come sailing in..." or at least I would have if I had gotten to the banks of the Ohio River about a week ago. The modern copies of Columbus's ships came downriver; I hope lots of people, especially kids, saw them and thought about their significance.
I know that some terrible things were done to Indians by settlers, but when I hear someone talk about how we stole land from the Indians, I suggest that they leave whatever property they own to the nearest tribe, not to their kids. I have yet to find any takers.
Yes, I know that awful things were done by Indians, too. One day when I was grumbling about being stuck in traffic out in the county, I remembered reading that in the late 1700s, a woman had been abducted and butchered by several Indians just a hundred yards or so from where I was idling.
That made my day's problems seem mighty small.
JmsA| 10.4.12 @ 10:57AM
La Pinta, La Niña y La Santa Maria. That's Spanish, not Italian, which I concur is la bella lingua.
Trish| 10.4.12 @ 2:29PM
Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria are the same in both languages, but to my ear the names sound better when spoken in Italian.
As I said, Italian is the beautiful language--THE most beautiful language.
JmsA| 10.4.12 @ 2:57PM
La Niña means the girl in Castillian/Spanish. In Italian it is: ragazza. La Pinta is a perfect pronoun as in the name of the ship, but it can also be a verb as in to paint, portray, stain, as well as someone's appearance, colloquially speaking.
JmsA| 10.4.12 @ 3:04PM
Oops: meant to write proper noun. Buona giomataa tutti. Buenos dias a todos. Good day to all.
byron3| 10.4.12 @ 4:41PM
Sorry, JmsA, but I am going to be anal, as so many posters tend to be:
Nina is used predominantly in the English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Swahili languages, and its origin is Italian.
Italian.
CJW| 10.4.12 @ 4:29PM
Trish,
Grazie, bella.
Frekki| 10.4.12 @ 1:26PM
Name the ship that brought Erikur Thorvaldsson (Eric the red) to the new world 500 years before Columbus.
I still love Columbus Day, thank God the progressives failed in trying to erase it.
Trish| 10.4.12 @ 2:31PM
Eric Red I
Frekki| 10.4.12 @ 2:39PM
That's the popular vote, I go for my ancestor's name;
Freydis.
Really it was Leif who discovered and named Vineland. Possibly Rhode Island. Possibly Nova Scotia. My mom doesn't remember.
Nick| 10.4.12 @ 5:48PM
No offense to your ancestors, Frekki, but there is absolutely no proof that any European landed in the New World prior to A.D. 1492.
Only speculation.
And that is why we celebrate Columbus Day. Not Leif Day. Sorry.
JmsA| 10.5.12 @ 2:24AM
You're wrong. Nina might be a proper noun or part of the vocabulary in all of those languages you cited, but Niña is not. It is solely a Spanish word. It means girl/little girl in Spanish/Castillian. I bet you none of you even know how to pronounce it correctly. I do. Knock yourself out and be as anally retentive as you wish, but you're all still wrong. Just because it sounds like it to someone, it doesn't make it so. Look on the second N in the word. See the little swung dash over the second N in the word? It is called a "tilde" in Spanish." There is no such sound in Italian, French, etc. Got it? Stop bastardizing languages. Those of us who have bothered to learn them and use them it appropriately don't appreciate it.
JmsA| 10.5.12 @ 2:31AM
You're wrong. There were Basque whaling stations in Newfoundland and Labrador in the mid 1500's, including a major whaling station in Red Bay.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 10.4.12 @ 3:42PM
To bring the usual genocide into it: Cortez and Pizarro were much bloodier than Columbus;
but if you mention such in public, you don't please Italians at the same time you are offending Spaniards.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 10.4.12 @ 10:02AM
An important lesson from Columbus Day (beyond the gratitude we should feel to Signor Colombo for his role in establishing this place we call home) is an understanding that clashes between civilizations occur, and quite frequently one wins out over the other. While the most serious threats to our own current way of life are most likely from within, it should not be ignored or forgotten that there are those who would like “transform” us from the outside, as well.
cuban pete| 10.4.12 @ 11:36AM
"clashes between civilizations occur"
Exactly. The Native American tribes were not living in some cooperative Utopia prior to the European's arrival. There were battles for territory going on long before Columbus arrived.
Turf wars are as old as mankind.
Grzmlyk| 10.4.12 @ 4:36PM
Wait - you described Columbus a heroic?
Hey, pal, this is egalitarian America. If we have heroes, we must have zeroes, and we can't have zeroes no matter what. Since the only way to make everybody equal is to bring down the successful, no heroes need apply in today's America.
Daring? Hey, that sounds like a "dog whistle" that conservatives use when describing entrepreneurs and risk takers who earn evil capital gains. That's greed and it's unfair! We don't stand for risk takers, buddy, and courage won't fit into the government bassinet. No, the daring need not apply in today's America.
Piety? Surely you jest. Unless Columbus was a Muslim, in which case his piety was truly virtuous and saintly and beyond reproach, you'd better take that back. Because, as I recall, Columbus was a Christian. And a Catholic, no less. Christians are responsible for Western Civilization, and Western Civilization is the responsible for all of the evil in the world today. No, the pius need not apply in today's America.
What a hateful bigot you are.
cicero| 10.4.12 @ 5:07PM
My folks came over from Abruzzi in the very late 1890's. They rode in the bellies of ships, after having walked across the boot of Italy to get to Naples. They carried their food with them, to hold them over on t he 2 weeek journey. Wow - how brave.
To get a flavor of why, I recommend a book I read a while ago called "Immigrant Foods". I thought it was a cook book when I ordered my copies. It was supposed to deal with Italian, Jewish, and Irish foods. I gave one to each of my partners - an Irishman and a Jew. It was actually about the immigrants themselves, and what they ate in the old country, as compared to their diets once they got here. I don't have the author off the top of my head.
Sir Winston's "History of the English Speaking Peoples" starts out very interestingly. He cautions the reader to study history with a view to the times in which it occurred, and not trying to judge it by the current generation's mores. good advice.
CJW| 10.4.12 @ 10:17PM
cicero
Paisano, w hat town or area in Abruzzi?
C. Vernon Crisler | 10.4.12 @ 9:02PM
I thought Bugs Bunny discovered America.
Skippy| 10.5.12 @ 2:47PM
"Pismo Beach at last!"