Hillbilly Destiny

"The only large group of older Americans which is doing more than reproducing itself is the Appalachian-Ozark hillbilly farmer, or his neighbor in the Piedmont." So sociologists were told last week at University of New Hampshire, by one of their number who had an interesting theory to propound. Discussing the "Second Colonization of New England" (by Irish, French-Canadians and South and East European immigrants since 1840), Harvard's Carle Clark Zimmerman explained why old New England stock could not survive the melting pot. Some of his points:

P:"The New England family was already in possession of many elements of weakness and instability by 1700." Symptoms: desire to have small families, interest in urban commerce rather than farming.

P:"The introduction of easy divorce in Connecticut in 1849 led the way to the Renos of America."

P:The Irish are following the Yankees into racial indistinctness. Symptoms: 1) the decay of their birth rate; 2) their "almost complete urbanization."

P:"A real colonist is almost always an agrarian. The Latin and Slavic peoples in New England are filtering back into the rural districts and on to the lands. ..."

P:The fast-multiplying "old American hillbilly type will send out his children to fill the vacancies in the ... Mississippi Valley and the corn belt, and eventually into New England itself." He "may not get as often into Who's Who but he certainly contributes more than his share to the Army and to those groups of Americans who accept 'American' value systems without question."

P:"America had a creative period (1770-1860) arising from her first colonization. . . . Probably a second period of 'manifest destiny' is just around the corner. . . . If the Anglo-Saxon fails to rise to the challenge, the French-Canadian and possibly the hillbilly will."

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