… is from page 85 of Daniel Boorstin’s 1958 volume, The Americans: The Colonial Experience:
Franklin, advising prospective immigrants to America, did not lure them with the paternal bounty of a just employer – rather with the fluidity of life here. It was precisely this openness which fired Crèvecoeur’s enthusiasm later in the century: in America the servile European could begin to have his will of the world – always at some risk of course – but that was what made him an American. The flavor of American life was compounded of risk, spontaneity, independence, initiative, drift, mobility, and opportunity.
