The growth of Providence runs even with the State’s, except in the excrescent luxury of Newport in its summer bloom. We cannot stand still like Holland; we must look outward or decay. The American destiny is reaching out, notwithstanding the caution of the prudent, perhaps of the judicious. The mystic Orient, no longer mysterious, beckons from the West instead of the East. It led the Browns, Iveses, Carringtons, Maurans, and their captains, the Holdens, Ormsbees, Paiges and Comstocks, to opulence. Their descendants, with more abundant capital, ready skill and better organization, ought not to lag in the world’s march. Men must be forthcoming. There has been always a cosmopolitan flavor in the little State, isolated between the restless intellectual energy of Massachusetts and the steady Puritan development of Connecticut. Boston had more trade than Providence and Newport; she was not so truly commercial. The larger Franklin went over to Pennsylvania, but the next man, Stephen Hopkins, stayed in Rhode Island. The seed which Berkeley planted sprouted in Channing, and that influence went throughout New England. The little State has never been without ideas. [Illustration] [Illustration] HARTFORD “THE BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY” BY MARY K. TALCOTT Among the historic cities of New England, Hartford claims a foremost place. Not only was its settlement of great consequence at the time, but for historical importance and far-reaching results this colony’s claims to attention are second only to those of Plymouth and Boston. The foundation of Hartford was a further application and development of the ideas that brought the Puritans to this country, and, to quote the historian, Johnston,-- “Here is the first practical assertion of the right of the people, not only to choose, but to limit the powers of their rulers, an assertion which lies at the foundation of the American system.... It is on the banks of the Connecticut, under the mighty preaching of Thomas Hooker, and in the constitution to which he gave life, if not form, that we draw the first breath of that atmosphere which is now so familiar to us. The birthplace of American democracy is Hartford.” This constitution, first promulgated in Hartford, was the first written constitution in history which was adopted by a people and which also organized a government. John Fiske says: “The compact drawn up in the Mayflower’s cabin was not, in the strict sense, a constitution, which is a document defining and limiting the functions of government. Magna Charta partook of the nature of a written constitution as far as it went, but it did not create a government.”