Nativist policies threaten not just American values, but its economy. Welcome to Mossberg, a weekly commentary and reviews column on The Verge and Recode by veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg, executive editor at The Verge and editor at large of Recode.
The next time you're driving from New York to Boston on I-95, you should make a little detour in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to visit the Old Slater Mill national historic landmark. It’s the site of what is considered to be the first successful water-powered textile spinning mill in America. That feat was made possible by Samuel Slater, an immigrant to the U.S. who came here at the age of 21 in 1789 from England — a country with which we had just fought a long, bitter war. He had the mill going only a few years after the signing of the U.S. Constitution, and is sometimes referred to as the Father of the American Industrial Revolution...
