Who's a Hoosier?
(from an 1891 address at Indiana University by Judge David Demaree Banta)
“Without going into an extended discussion of what, at this late and let us hope better day, may be regarded in the light of characteristics of the people of Indiana in the time of the early history of our State, it will aid you, I trust, to a somewhat better understanding of the men and events of the times to keep in mind one or two of the most prominent characteristics of the Indianians of the period.
I believe if I were asked to give a name to what I conceived to be the most prominent characteristic of the Indiana man of that time I should say, Pugnacity. It is true this is a characteristic he had in common with all other Western men, but it was his characteristic nevertheless, and he possessed it in a high degree.
Next to his pugnacious spirit came a characteristic which for want of a better name may be called a spirit of intensity. Men felt more than they thought. More than is the case to-day they were given to act upon impulse rather than from reason. They were more emotional and were easier to be moved by the orator than is the case now. They felt more intensely than we do. They were more apt to act under the inspiration of the “hurrah,” than are we. There was more of the “nobly wild and extravagant” in the character of that day than this. Those were the days when the river hero was “half horse and half alligator”; when the country hero was a “six-horse-team-with-a-bull-dog-under-the-wag- on.” It was a day when a militia brigadier-general could empty a barrel of whiskey and a half barrel of sugar into a public well and receive the plaudits of the battalion.
It was this intense, impetuous, extravagant spirit which drove the State not long after this time into that disastrous internal improvements system, the evil effects of which have scarcely yet disappeared.
After these characteristics, I would mention patriotism, sectarianism and orthodoxy, partisanship and sensitiveness. The Indianian was intensely and pugnaciously patriotic, sectarian and orthodox, partisan and sensitive.”