The Project Gutenberg eBook of My country 'tis of thee, by Willis Fletcher Johnson, A. M..

OR,
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;
Past, Present and Future.

A Philosophic View of American History and of Our Present
Status, to be Seen in
THE COLUMBIAN EXHIBITION.

BY
WILLIS FLETCHER JOHNSON, A. M.,
Author of “Stanley’s Adventures in Africa,” “History of the Johnstown
Flood,” “A Life of General Sherman,” Etc.
———
GREAT ISSUES OF THE FUTURE,
AS VIEWED BY
OUR MOST PROMINENT EDITORS AND EMINENT MEN OF
OUR COUNTRY,
INCLUDING
President Harrison, Ex-President Cleveland, Senator Sherman,
Judge Thurman, Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Foss, Bishop
Potter, T. V. Powderly, General Schofield,
Admiral Porter, and many others.

BY
J O H N H A B B E R T O N,

Author of “A Life of George Washington,” Etc., and Editor of
“The Select British Essayists.”
———
ILLUSTRATED.
———
INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING CO.,
44 N. 4th St., Philadelphia, Pa. 134 E. Van Buren St., Chicago, Ill.
1892.

———
Copyright, 1892, by B. W. URIAN.
———

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT.
BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS.
WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

With reference to your request for an introductory note, allow me to assure you that it affords me great pleasure to speak to the masses through the medium of your excellent book.

THE PURPOSES
OF THE
BOARD OF LADY MANAGERS
OF THE
WORLD’S COLUMBIAN COMMISSION.

The Board of Lady Managers of the World’s Columbian Commission, having been created and authorized by the concurrent action of Congress and the Columbian Commission, to take entire charge of the interests of women at the coming Exposition, desires to develop to the fullest extent the grand possibilities which have been placed within its reach.

The Board wishes to mark the first participation of women in an important national enterprise, by preparing an object lesson to show the progress made by women in every country of the world, during the century in which educational and other privileges have been granted her, and to show the increased usefulness that has resulted from the enlargement of her opportunities.

The Board of Lady Managers invites the women of all countries to participate in this great exhibit of woman’s work, to the end that it may be made not only national, but universal, and that all may profit by a free comparison of methods, agencies, and results.

It is of the first importance that such a representative collection be secured from every country as will give an adequate idea of the extent and value of what is being done by women in the arts, sciences, and industries.{3}

We will aim to show to the breadwinners, who are fighting unaided the battle of life, the new avenues of employment that are constantly being opened to women, and in which of these their work will be of the most distinct value by reason of their natural adaptability, sensitive and artistic temperaments, and individual tastes; what education will best enable them to enjoy the wider opportunities awaiting them and make their work of the greatest worth, not only to themselves but to the world.

The Board has decided that at the coming Exposition it will not attempt to separate the exhibit of woman’s work from that of men, for the reason that as women are working side by side with men in all the factories of the world, it would be practically impossible, in most cases, to divide the finished result of their combined work; nor would women be satisfied with prizes unless they were awarded without distinction as to sex, and as the result of fair competition with the best work shown. They are striving for excellence, and desire recognition only for demonstrated merit. In order, however, that the enormous amount of work being done by women may be appreciated a tabulated statement will be procured and shown with every exhibit, stating the proportion of woman’s work that enters into it. The application blanks now being sent out to manufacturers contain this inquiry.

The Board of Lady Managers has been granted by Act of Congress the great and unusual privilege of appointing members of each jury to award prizes for articles into which woman’s work enters. The number of women on each jury will be proportionate to the amount of work done by women in the corresponding department of classification. The statement as to the amount of their work will therefore be of double significance, for in addition to the impressive showing of how large a proportion of the heavy labor of the world is being performed by the weaker sex, it will also determine the amount of jury representation to which the Board is entitled.{4}

Beside the extensive exhibit in the general Exposition buildings, women will have another opportunity of displaying work of superior excellence in a very advantageous way in the Woman’s Building, over which the Board of Lady Managers will exercise complete control. In its central gallery it is intended to have grouped the most brilliant achievements of women from every country and in every line of work. Exhibits will be admitted only by invitation, which will be considered the equivalent of a prize. No sentimental sympathy for women will cause the admission of second-rate objects, for the highest standard of excellence is to be there strictly maintained. Commissions of women organized in all countries, as auxiliaries to the Board of Lady Managers, will be asked to recommend objects of supreme excellence produced by women, and producers of such successful work will be invited to place specimens in the gallery of the Woman’s Building.

Not only has woman become an immense, although generally unrecognized factor in the industrial world, but hers being essentially the arts of peace and progress, her best work is shown in the numberless charitable, reformatory, educational, and other beneficent institutions which she has had the courage and the ideality to establish for the alleviation of suffering, for the correction of many forms of social injustice and neglect, and for the reformation of long-established wrongs. These institutions exert a strong and steady influence for good, an influence which tends to decrease vice, to make useful citizens of the helpless or depraved, to elevate the standard of morality, and to increase the sum of human happiness; thus most effectively supplementing the best efforts and furthering the highest aims of all government.

All organizations of women must be impressed with the necessity of making an effective showing of the noble work which each is carrying on. We especially desire to have represented, in the rooms reserved for that purpose,{5} the educational work originated or carried on by women, from the Kindergarten organizations up to the highest branches of education, including all schools of applied science and art, such as training-schools for nurses, manual training, industrial art and cooking schools, domestic economy, sanitation, etc. When not practically exhibited, the work of all such organizations should be shown by maps, charts, photographs, relief models, etc.; but it is earnestly hoped that one, at least, the most representative institution in each of these branches, will be shown from every country, in order that a comparison may be made of methods and results.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
THE AGE OF DISCOVERY.
Classic legends of Atlantis—Chinese and Japanese accounts of early voyages to America—Prince Madoc and the Welsh legends—The voyages of the Vikings—Eric and Leif and their adventures—Columbus and his schemes—The most memorable voyage in history—Post-Columbian voyagers and explorers—Many men from many lands flocking to the newly-discovered continent—A new world opened to the civilization and to the greed of Europe	17
CHAPTER II.
“IN THE GOOD OLD COLONY TIMES.”
Parcelling out the country—Foundation of the earliest colonies—Jamestown and its settlers—Strange improvidence of the colonists—Troubles with the Indians—John Smith and Pocahontas—The Pilgrims and Puritans—Substantial growth of the New England Colonies—New York—Troubles with the Mother Country—Growth of the spirit of independence—The War of the Revolution and its results	60
CHAPTER III.
THE STORY OF THE NATION.
Establishing a constitutional government—Disputes with other powers—A second war with England—Territorial acquisitions—Settlement and admission of new States—The slavery question—War with Mexico—The rush for gold in California—The Kansas troubles—How the great war was precipitated—The campaigns from Bull Run to Appomattox—Political results of the war—Rapid growth of the country since—The present state of the nation{7}	105
CHAPTER IV.
WORLD’S FAIRS.
The origin and object of universal exhibitions—New York’s Crystal Palace—Spirit and hopes of its projectors—Its display of the nation’s greatness—The Centennial Exposition of 1876—Magnitude of the enterprise—Description of its hundred buildings—Calendar of events—An impressive exposition of national development	146
CHAPTER V.
THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.
Preparations for a celebration of the quartercentenary of Columbus—Chicago chosen as the site—Marvelous history of the Western Metropolis—How the Columbian Exhibition was organized—Sketches of its promoters—The principal buildings and grounds—Financial arrangements—An exhibition surpassing all its predecessors and fittingly commemorating the birth of a new world	204
CHAPTER VI.
SOCIETY’S FOUNDATION-STONE.
Marriage Customs in the United States—Shiploads of women disposed of as wives to the earlier Virginia Planters—The Marriage Relation should be closely guarded—Divorced people, have they moral right to remarry?—A rich man and a stupid wife—Drifting apart—Duty of the Church—Views of a happy wife—Novels, love and marriage—“Beauty and the Beast”—An insulting imputation—Is it the “best match?”—Marriage blunders	247
CHAPTER VII.
THE DEMON OF DIVORCE.
Marriage not a failure—Rev. David Swing’s caustic comment—Views of Rabbi Silverman—Heartlessness of Divorce Court proceedings—Divorced persons debarred by the Queen of England—Sufferings of the children—“Vice is a monster of such hideous mien”—Shall we have a Constitutional Amendment restricting divorce?—Views of Bishop Foss and Bishop Whittaker—Position of the Catholic Church and of the Hebrews—“Church union cannot be combated”—“Burn the bridges”{8}	260
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FARMER’S TROUBLES.
Encumbered with mortgage—Energy of the farmer—Lack of capital—Labor—The farmer’s children and city life—“The borrower is servant to the lender”—The census valuation of farm lands—Hiram Sibley, the millionaire farmer—Twelve Vermont farms—The Western farmer and the railroads—Co-operative stores—“Land-poor”—Government aid for the farmers	272
CHAPTER IX.
THE RUM POWER.
Harm done by the liquor traffic—Views of Bishop Warren, of the Methodist Church—Miss Frances Willard’s views—“Petroleum” Nasby—Rum in politics—Channing’s aphorism—Rev. Theodore Cuyler’s summary of statistics—Causes of drunkenness—Ways to reclaim the unfortunates—Control the demon by law—Public opinion—Bishop Foss’ reply—Restrictive measures	288
CHAPTER X.
NATIONAL DEFENCE.
Our harbors useless—Caught napping by England—Troops and the Indians—General Sheridan’s last report—General Sherman’s protests—Congressional inactivity—Admiral Porter hammering at Congress—A blast from the late Samuel J. Tilden—Desertions from the army—Statistics from General Schofield’s report—Frontier life for the soldier—Major Sumner’s plan	303
CHAPTER XI.
LABOR.
Laboring men—Their mistakes and their grievances—Labor sure to be imposed upon—Driving a sharp bargain—Low wages resulting from competition—A laborer in chains recently brought for sale into the market-place of a New England town—But the people rise in their wrath—Does practical slavery exist in the United States?—Coal miners and factory hands compared with the consistados of South America—The store system of credits—Resulting evils to the laborers	318
CHAPTER XII.
SELF-HELP FOR LABOR.
The importance of being a “full-handed workman”—Successful{9} mechanics know more than one branch of business—This quality developed in new countries—Votes of laborers controlled by corporations—A curious experience in the West	336
CHAPTER XIII.
IMMIGRATION.
America is a home—Not an asylum—Liberty is not license—No paupers need apply—Nor any contract laborers—Skilled labor welcome, if it comes to stay—Immigrant farmers will do us good—Too much hurry in granting citizenship—Foreign faction fights must not be kept up here—Transplanted stock improves rapidly	351
CHAPTER XIV.
ANNEXATION.
We don’t want the earth—We need more neighbors—Not more children—Non-assimilative races would weaken us—The Old World’s experience at land-grabbing—Let Canada alone till she wants us—Likewise Mexico—We have enough discordant interests now—We don’t want to pay other nations’ debts	368
CHAPTER XV.
THE INDIAN.
He has stopped fighting—Let us stop robbing him—The Indian will work—He has plenty of brains—Capacity for education abundantly proved—Records of the experiment at Hampton—He knows a good thing when he sees it—The beneficent effects of the Dawes bill—Even the Apaches have worked as good as white men	385
CHAPTER XVI.
THE PRESS.
The editor is the nation’s schoolmaster—Also the most trusty advocate of the people’s rights—He brings the people together in spirit and purpose—Always ahead of Congress and the government—Rapid improvement of the newspaper—Independence in journalism—Trial by newspaper	399
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SCHOOL-ROOM.
Boys and girls who are to be men and women—The schools are behind the times—Too much fuss and too little gain—Discipline which costs too much—Heads stuffed, but hands and hearts neglected—Faults of teaching—About faculties benumbed by routine{10} work—What has been done can be done—The country boy ahead	410
CHAPTER XVIII.
RAILROADS.
Rights and wrongs of the great transportation corporations—What they have done for the country and what the country has done for them—Era of construction closed and an era of restriction and regulation begun—Why railroad officials become millionaires—Watering stock—A curious question which will be raised one of these days	431
CHAPTER XIX.
BANKS AND BANKING.
New York no longer the sole dictator in the money market—Why Western business men are now independent of metropolitan money-lenders—The increase of “reserve cities”—Banking methods to dodge the laws—How unscrupulous bank directors get rich—Why so many cashiers go to Canada and how to stop them—Noted living bankers	455
CHAPTER XX.
OUR CITIES.
Cities are necessary evils—But greatly to be avoided—City life is dangerous to most persons—Unnatural influences are inevitable—Hard on the purse and hard on the heart—Poverty’s last refuge—The home of the thief—The touch of nature lost—Temptations innumerable—Restraints few—No place for country boys and girls—City forms of government must change—The Darker Side—The sorrows of the city poor—Friendless and alone—Miserable homes—Health and morals menaced—All depends on one life—Chances and misfortunes—Sickness and death—The story of the Ganges paralleled—The majority are industrious—An army of heroes—Religion and rum their only comforts—Child work and child ruin—Benevolence wearied and despairing	481
CHAPTER XXI.
RELIGION.
Religion is in no danger—The letter suffers but the spirit grows—Essentials were never more prominent—The tree is judged by its fruit—Proselyting has gone out of date—Denominations have ceased to fight—A life as well as a faith{11}	509
CHAPTER XXII.
WOMAN AND HER WORK.
One “woman’s right” secured—She has a chance almost everywhere—The liberation of man—Woman’s wits sharpen quickly—Advantages over male workers—Woman need not marry for a home—The tables turned—Some effects upon society—Never enslaved unless stupid—The “Song of the Shirt”—The coming generation	517
CHAPTER XXIII.
OUR LITERATURE.
A nation of readers—Books to be found everywhere—The Sunday-School library—Chautauqua’s great work—The American author is a busy man—Good books make their way, sooner or later—Abler men should go into authorship—Our literature making its way abroad—American writers’ characteristics—Our literature is clean, earnest and hopeful	531
CHAPTER XXIV.
AMERICAN HUMOR.
The salt that will save us—A nation of jokers—Our Puritan and cavalier ancestors were fond of fun—President Lincoln’s jokes—Humor in the pulpit—Fun in the newspapers—Prentice—Mark Twain—Nasby—Nye and Riley—Miles O’Reilly—“Uncle Remus”—John Hay—“Bob” Burdette—All healthy fun—No malignity in our jokes—The best-natured people alive	547
CHAPTER XXV.
THE HIGHER EDUCATION.
A land full of colleges—How these institutions began to exist—Tributes to American regard for intelligence and education—Something better needed—No lack of money—Views of Presidents Dwight of Yale, Eliot of Harvard, McCosh of Princeton, White of Cornell, Bartlett of Dartmouth, and Gilman of Johns Hopkins—Bishop Potter on the place of the scholar in America	566
CHAPTER XXVI.
OUR GREAT CONCERN.
Our country first and foremost—No sectional differences—No foreign interests or entanglements—The people first, the party afterward—Loyalty to party means disloyalty to the republic—Meddlers must be suppressed—All in the family—One for all and all for one—E Pluribus Unum	597

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

“MY COUNTRY, ’TIS OF THEE.”

CHAPTER I.

THE AGE OF DISCOVERY.

BEGINNING with the year 1492, the date of the first voyage of Columbus, necessarily leaves a great part of American history untold. Every nation’s story begins in the middle; back of Leonidas are the Homeric heroes; Romulus and Remus antedate the Tarquins. So, centuries before the clear glory of Columbus, we have tradition of various shadowy explorers whose strange barques visited our shores. Unless we grant the earliest inhabitants of America an autochthonic origin, it seems most reasonable to suppose that they came from Asia. Such authorities as Humboldt, Bancroft, and Prescott declare it their opinion that the monuments, the systems of cosmogony, the methods of computing time, etc., all point to an ancient communication with eastern Asia. It is certain that from time immemorial constant intercourse has been kept up between the natives of either side of Bering’s Strait, and it is very probable that the original immigrants came that way. There are other possible routes—the Aleutian Islands and{18} Polynesia are the two next favored by the authorities.

There is a distinct trace of Japanese blood in many of the native tribes of the northwest coast, and we have too many modern instances of Japanese junks drifting upon the American coast, after floating for months at the mercy of the Pacific currents, to doubt the possibility of prehistoric visits of these people. What is known as the “black stream,” or Japan current, runs northward past the eastern coast of the Japanese Islands, then curves to the east and south, passing the west coast of America and moving toward the Sandwich Islands. This current, it is said, would carry a drifting vessel toward the American coast at the rate of ten miles a day.

The theory which supposes the people, or at least the civilization, of America to be of Egyptian origin is based upon analogies existing between the architecture, hieroglyphics, and various customs of the two countries. But even where these analogies bear the test of close examination, they can scarcely be said to prove anything. In western Asia the Phœnicians—those bold voyagers—and their children, the Carthagenians, are given the honor of settling America. The records of their travels show that they knew of a country lying far to the west. In the writings of Diodorus Siculus is an elaborate account of a wonderful island in the Atlantic Ocean, far beyond{19} the Pillars of Hercules, and many days’ journey from the coast of Africa. This happy land, fertile of soil, beautiful of scenery, and perfect of climate, was accidentally discovered by Phœnician sailors, whose barque was driven thither by contrary winds. On their return they gave such glowing accounts of the new country that large colonies of Tyrians left their native land to settle there. This may have been America, but is more likely to have been the Canary Islands.

Volumes have been written to prove that America was settled by the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.

In old Welsh annals there is an account of a colony established in the twelfth century by Madoc, one of the sons of Owen Gwynedd, prince of North Wales. After the death of this monarch, his sons waged war against each other for the sovereignty. Madoc became disgusted with contention, and determined to leave his native country and establish a kingdom of his own, as far away as possible from the quarreling of his brothers. He set sail, with what followers he could muster, and for many months bore westward. At length they came to a large and favorable country, and, having sailed for some distance along the coast, they found a landing-place to their liking and disembarked. Some years later, Madoc returned to Wales and persuaded a large{20} number of his countrymen to join the colony. Ten ships were fitted out with all manner of supplies, and many families set sail for the new land. Of their further adventures the records are silent.

An Irish discovery of America is also claimed. St. Patrick is said to have sent missionaries thither. There is every reason to believe that Irish sailors could have reached, by accident or otherwise, the shores of our continent, but there is no reason at all to believe that they did.

But these are all speculations, fairy stories, myths. Coming down to sober facts, there are but two historical documents of real value bearing upon the discovery of America before Columbus. One of these documents is Chinese, the other Scandinavian.

The Chinese document is an extract from the official records, and sets forth the adventures of a Buddhist priest named Hwui Shin, the same being related by him after his return from a country lying very far to the eastward. This country is claimed by some to have been Japan, but others claim that it was America. The weight of evidence certainly inclines toward the latter theory. The historian begins his account with the statement that, in order to reach the new continent, it is necessary to set out from the coast of the province Leao-tong, to the north of Peking, reaching Japan after a journey of twelve{21} thousand li—that is, about four thousand miles. Sailing northward seven thousand li, one reaches the kingdom of Wen-shin. Five thousand li eastward is the country of Ta-han. Twenty thousand li beyond is the new world—which the record names as the country of Fu-sang.

Perhaps we cannot do better than to present the original record, as translated by Professor S. Wells Williams:

“In the first year of the reign, Yung-yuen, of the Emperor Tung Hwăn-han, of the Tsi dynasty (A.D. 499), a Shaman priest named Hwui Shin arrived at King-chau from the kingdom of Fu-sang. He related as follows:

“ ‘Fu-sang lies east of the kingdom of Ta-han more than twenty thousand li; it is also east of the Middle Kingdom (China). It produces many fu-sang trees, from which it derives its name. The leaves of the fu-sang resemble those of the tung tree. It sprouts forth like the bamboo, and the people eat the shoots. Its fruits resemble the pear, but it is red; the bark is spun into cloth for dresses and woven into brocade. The houses are made of planks. There are no walled cities with gates. The (people) use characters and writing, making paper from the bark of the fu-sang. There are no mailed soldiers, for they do not carry on war. The law of the land prescribes a southern and a northern prison. Criminals convicted of light crimes are put into{22} the former, and those guilty of grievous offenses into the latter. Criminals, when pardoned, are let out of the southern prison, but those in the northern prison are not pardoned. Prisoners in the latter marry. Their boys become bondmen when they are eight years old and the girls bondwomen when nine years old. Convicted prisoners are not allowed to leave their prison while alive. When a nobleman (or an official) has been convicted of crime, the great assembly of the nation meets and places the criminal in a hollow (or pit); they set a feast, with wine, before him, and then take leave of him. If the sentence is a capital one, at the time they separate they surround (the body) with ashes. For crimes of the first grade the sentence involves only the person of the culprit; for the second it reaches the children and grandchildren; while the third extends to the seventh generation.

“ ‘The king of this country is termed yueh-ki; the highest rank of nobles is called tui-li; the next, little tui-li; and the lowest, no-cha-sha. When the king goes abroad, he is preceded and followed by drummers and trumpeters. The color of his robes varies with the years in the cycle containing the ten stems. It is azure in the first two years; in the second two years it is red; it is yellow in the third, white in the fourth, and black in the last two years. There are oxen with long horns, so long that they will hold{23} things—the biggest as much as five pecks. Vehicles are drawn by oxen, horses, and deer, for the people of that land rear deer just as the Chinese rear cattle, and make cream of their milk. They have red pears, which will keep a year without spoiling; water-rushes and peaches are common. Iron is not found in the ground, though copper is; they do not prize gold or silver, and trade is conducted without rent, duty, or fixed prices.

“ ‘In matters of marriage, it is the law that the (intending) son-in-law must erect a hut before the door of the girl’s house, and must sprinkle and sweep the place morning and evening for a whole year. If she then does not like him, she bids him depart; but if she is pleased with him they are married. The bridal ceremonies are, for the most part, like those of China. A fast of seven days is observed for parents at their death, five for grandparents, and three days for brothers, sisters, uncles, or aunts. Images to represent their spirits are set up, before which they worship and pour out libations morning and evening; but they wear no mourning or fillets. The successor of the king does not attend personally to government affairs for the first three years. In olden times they knew nothing of the Buddhist religion, but during the reign Ta-ming of the Emperor Hiao Wu-ti, of the Lung dynasty (A.D. 458), from Ki-pin five beggar priests went there. They traveled over{24} the kingdom, everywhere making known the laws, canons, and images of that faith. Priests of regular ordination were set apart among the natives, and the customs of the country became reformed.’ ”

There are several other narratives which relate to Fu-sang, or to countries near it in situation. This, of them all, seems to describe most truthfully a real country. Fu-sang may have been Japan, or it may have been Mexico. Hwui Shin’s account differs very widely in some of its details, from our knowledge of either.

All the literature of the subject of Chinese discoveries of America has been examined and reviewed in Mr. E. P. Vining’s excellent book, An Inglorious Columbus. Mr. Vining believes Fu-sang to be Mexico, and the fu-sang tree, in his view, is the maguey.

When we come to the Scandinavian records, we find much that is not only plausible but indisputable evidence of the validity of their claims. We know that the Scandinavian vikings, splendid old rascals, in their many-oared galleys, often sailed far out into the waters of the Atlantic. In the year 860, one of these glorious cut-throats, Naddoddr (pronounce it if you can!), was blown upon the coast of Iceland. In 876 a similar experience befell another viking, and he reported having seen in the distance the coast of an unknown shore.

In the year 981, Eric the Red, an outlaw of{25} Iceland, sailed in search of this coast, and, finding it, set a bad example to future real estate dealers by naming its bleak length Greenland.

Subsequent to this discovery, according to the sagas of Iceland, frequent visits to the south were made, and one Bjarni, distancing all previous explorers, found a fertile country to which he gave the name of Vinland. This was in the year 985, and, although the stories of these exploits are vague and untrustworthy enough in detail, there seems little doubt that Bjarni really visited the eastern coast of America at that date.

No attempt was made at colonization; indeed, it is not recorded that the galleys of Bjarni stopped at the new land at all. The wind which had carried them thither changed suddenly, and they were borne back to Iceland, where it is safe to presume that they all got uproariously drunk, and did a great deal of bragging on the strength of their adventure.

The second voyage to the new country was made by Leif, son of Eric the Red, about the year 1000. He touched first a barren land covered with icy mountains which he named Helluland. Spreading sail again he turned the prow of his vessel southward until he reached a level country with trees and grassy slopes. This he called Markland. Two days sailing brought the vessel to an island at which the sailors disembarked, for the weather was warm and the{26} sight of land alluring. They stayed here for a few hours and then steered for the mainland. A river flowed out from a lake, and in this lake they anchored, carried the luggage from the ship, and built themselves houses. It was the most beautiful, the most fertile land they had ever seen, and they resolved to spend the winter there. One of the boldest of them left his companions to the enjoyment of the salmon fishing in the river and lake, and devoted himself to exploring the surrounding country. He found quantities of wine-berries (probably grapes), and with these berries and with some wood they loaded their ship and set sail for Greenland.

Seven years later another expedition was fitted out with three ships, and under command of this same Leif. They sailed far to the southward and finally came to a promontory, to the right of which lay a long, sandy beach. On this beach, or rather on a tongue of land that ran out from it, they found the keel of a ship. They called this point, Kjlarnes (Keel Cape), and the beach, Furdustrandir (Long Strand).

When the expedition set out, King Olaf Tryggvason gave Lief two famous runners, a Scotch man and woman, named Haki and Hekja. These people were set on shore shortly after they had passed Furdustrandir, and ordered to run to the south, explore the country and return{27} in three days. At the end of the designated period they returned, the man bringing a bunch of wine-berries and the woman an ear of wheat. This was promising, and the expedition voted to continue the southward course.

Coming to a bay in which was an island around which flowed rapid currents, they gave it the name of Straumey (Stream Island). The island was so covered with the nests of eider ducks that it was difficult to step without treading on the eggs. Here they resolved to tarry, and, unloading the vessels, built habitations. Whether they stayed a long or a short time, and what adventures befell them, of good or evil, we know not.

A fuller record is that of Karlsefne, who with another hero, Snorro, and our old friend Bjarni, sailed southward a long time until they came to the river which ran out through the lake into the sea. The river was too shallow to allow the ships to enter without high water. Karlsefne sailed with his men into its mouth, and named the place Hop. Here were found fields of wild wheat, and on the high ground wine-berries grew abundantly. The woods were full of game and the men found plenty of amusement for a fortnight. The only remarkable thing they saw was a number of skin boats filled with swart, ugly people who rowed near the shore and gazed in astonishment at the Northmen. They{28} had coarse hair, large, wild eyes and broad faces. They remained gazing at Karlsefne’s men for a little and then rowed away to the southward.

With these people the explorers soon established communication, trading red cloth, which the natives seemed to prefer to anything else, for skins and furs. They wished to purchase swords and spears, but these the Northmen refused to part with. As long as the red cloth held out their relations with the Skraelings, as they had named the natives, continued friendly. But one day, as the saga has it, while they were trafficking, a bull which Karlsefne had with him ran out of the wood and bellowed so fiercely that the Skraelings were frightened out of their wits, and fled in their skin boats, back to the southland.

Three weeks later great numbers of them returned, and, with loud cries, sprang on shore, prepared to do battle. Their weapons were slings, and very uncomfortable weapons they proved to be, but the Northmen stood their ground valiantly, until all of a sudden they saw the Skraelings raise on a pole something that looked like an air-filled bag of a blue color. They threw this at the enemy, and when it struck the ground it exploded violently. At this Karlsefne and his men retreated, never stopping until they gained a rocky stronghold, where they made{29} another stand, and at length succeeded in vanquishing the Skraelings.

Shortly afterward the expedition returned to Greenland. Many other Northmen visited Vinland, according to the sagas, but no effort was made at colonization. It is a matter of conjecture as to the exact location of the country explored by them. Some writers believe it to have been Labrador, and others place it as far south as Rhode Island. The Skraelings, as they are described in the sagas, certainly resemble Esquimaux more nearly than Indians. But then we have no positive proof that the Northmen ever actually visited America at all. The presumption is that they did, but all matters of detail must necessarily remain doubtful, even if we accept their narratives in the main as true.

But whatever credit is to be given to the Asiatic, Norse, or other early discoverers of America, or whatever knowledge of this hemisphere may have been possessed by Europeans in classic times, to Christopher Columbus must be ascribed the honor of opening the Western World to actual settlement by civilized man. This illustrious man was born in 1436, in all but the lowest rank of life. His father was a woolcomber of Genoa. But the education of the lad was made as complete as the scanty means of his parents and the limited knowledge of that day would permit. At an early age he learned to read and write,{30} and obtained some knowledge of arithmetic, drawing, and painting. Then he was sent to the college at Pavia, one of the best institutions of learning of those times. Here he studied grammar and the Latin language; but his attention, fortunately for the world, was directed principally to studies bearing upon the maritime profession, which he intended to follow. He was instructed in geometry, astronomy, and navigation. Like many of the young men of Genoa, he had an irresistible inclination toward the sea. This was but natural, as that city was one of the chief ports of the world. Later in life, Columbus ascribed this inclination to a direct impulse from God, but this was only after his career had been crowned with such brilliant success.

Geography was at this time the fashionable fad of the day. The world was just beginning to recover the lost geographical knowledge, limited as it was, of the Greeks and Romans. Monks and churchmen were still splitting hairs over absurdly unimportant problems: How many angels could stand on the point of a needle? whether a lie, under certain circumstances, was not truth? whether black might not, in certain cases, be truly called white? and other questions of equal vitality. But Arabian philosophers, at the same time, were measuring degrees of latitude and calculating the circumference of the earth. Their studies and achievements inevitably{31} found their way to the minds of many Christians in Europe, who, although detesting the religious creed of the Mohammedans, were able to see that their science was not to be despised. The works of Ptolemy and Strabo had also just come into popular circulation, and created as much of a sensation as any realistic novel of the present day. Prince Henry of Portugal had made voyages of important discovery along the African coast, and thus had inspired all the nations of Western Europe with the hope of lighting upon some yet unknown region of fabulous wealth.

All these circumstances made the time particularly fitting for the most important event of the ages since the Christian era. The hour had come and the man also. At fourteen years of age Columbus left the school at Pavia, and began the life of a sailor. This simply meant to cruise from one port of the Mediterranean Sea to another, half as a merchantman, half as a man-of-war. Every vessel was hourly exposed to the attacks of pirates, especially those of the Barbary States, or of the war vessels of hostile countries. In the midst of such dangers and difficulties Columbus spent his early years. But the coarseness, ignorance, and violence with which he was surrounded did not degrade his noble mind. He had within him the seeds of greatness, a fine tone of thought, an ardent imagination,{32} and a loftiness of aspiration. Every leisure hour was spent in study and profitable observation, thus improving the too meagre educational advantages of his brief school life.

The year 1470 found Columbus at Lisbon, drawn thither with hundreds of other navigators and scientific men by the fame of Prince Henry’s discoveries. Strange tales were told of unexplored regions in the fiery South, where the rocks were red hot and the water of the ocean forever boiling. Even to these extravagant tales Columbus gave some heed, but his thoughts were principally fixed on the possibility of finding a new world far to the west. Our hero was now in the prime of life, a tall, muscular man of commanding aspect. His light brown hair was already prematurely gray, and his expression of countenance was grave and scholarly. He was simple and abstemious in his diet, affable and engaging in his manners and a devout Roman Catholic. But under this exterior was concealed a nature of the most ardent enthusiasm, not less energetic than that of Peter the Hermit or Ignatius Loyola. His religious temperament led him often to the services of the Church, and it was there that he first met a lady of high rank who soon afterward became his wife. She was the daughter of Don Bartolomeo Monis de Palestrello, an Italian cavalier, one of Prince Henry’s most distinguished officers. The use of his father-in-law’s{33}

fine collection of maps and charts was of great service to Columbus, who now gave his attention to geographical studies more thoroughly than ever. He talked or corresponded with all the learned men of the day. He began to trace charts of his own, correcting the popular errors and traditions by the aid of his own greater knowledge and experience. Rumor, inspired by the stories of early adventures, had studded the far western ocean with wondrous islands, on one of which seven Christian bishops, fleeing from Pagan persecution, had founded seven splendid cities. There were tales of a lofty mountainous country to be seen on clear days far to the westward from the Canary Islands. Plato had told of the ancient continent of Atlantis, which had been sunk beneath the waves of the ocean. Marco Polo, the Venetian adventurer, had told of the great wealth of the East Indies, which he said could be reached by sailing westward from Europe.

However much he discounted the more extravagant of these tales, Columbus was deeply impressed by them all. He became well convinced that far to the west there lay an unexplored region, probably a part of the East Indies, and he believed, with an intense religious zeal, that God had specially commissioned him to discover and explore it. Thereupon he consecrated the whole of his remaining life to the{34} execution of this task. No hazard, nor obstacle, nor disappointment for a moment daunted him. He first applied to the Portuguese Court, stating the grounds of his belief in the existence of an undiscovered country in the western ocean, and asking for the means of ascertaining the truth of it. His proposition was received with indifference, and finally rejected under the influences of jealousy and intrigue. Then he returned to his native Genoa, and there sought the same aid and encouragement; but Genoa was already declining under the stress of domestic discord and foreign war, and was unable to do anything for him.

The fortunes of Columbus were now at a low ebb. He had exhausted his private means, and was in actual destitution. Downcast and disappointed, often begging his food from door to door, he made his way on foot from Genoa to the Court of Spain. Leading his little son by the hand, he one day approached the Spanish capital, and asked for bread and water at a convent door. The prior saw him, talked with him, became interested in him and his schemes, and offered to introduce him at Court. Thus Columbus obtained an interview with Cardinal Mendoza, the chief minister and confidential adviser of the King and Queen, Ferdinand and Isabella. The Cardinal was a man of extensive information and liberal mind, who perceived at once the{35} value of Columbus’s theories and commended them to the sovereigns. The King, also, was apparently a good judge of men, and appreciated the character and ability of Columbus. But he was not willing to embark hastily in so great an enterprise as that proposed. He first called together a council of all the most learned astronomers and geographers in his kingdom, and to them referred Columbus, with his maps and charts and theories.

This council met at Salamanca. It was entirely composed of friars, priests, and monks, who monopolized all the learning, both secular and religious, of that age. Some were men of large and philosophic minds; others, narrow bigots; but all were imbued with the notion that geographical discovery had reached its limits long before. In the presence of this learned body, Columbus, a simple seaman, strong in nothing save the energy of his convictions and the fire of his enthusiasm, had to appear to defend a scheme which to them must have appeared the dream of a madman. The difficulties of his position may be guessed from the nature of some of the objections made to his undertaking. His mathematical propositions and demonstrations were met with quotations from the Book of Genesis, the Psalms, the Prophets, the Epistles, the Gospels, and half a dozen of the Fathers of the Church. When he argued that the earth{36} was spherical, his opponents quoted one of the Psalms, where the heavens are said to be extended like a hide. Some members of the council, for the sake of argument, would admit the rotundity of the earth, but denied the possibility of circumnavigating it, first, because of the intolerable heat of the torrid zone, and second, because it would take at least three years to accomplish the voyage, in which time the explorers would die of hunger, it being impossible to carry provisions sufficient for so long a time. Still others said that if a ship did reach India, she could never return, for the roundness of the globe would place a hill in her way, up which the strongest wind could not blow her.

Such were the absurd notions held by the foremost scholars of those days. It is needless here to recount such arguments further, or the arguments, now familiar to every school-boy, used by Columbus in support of his theory. It is enough to say that he was treated with incredulity, suspicion, and contempt, and narrowly escaped being condemned for heresy. After a long consultation the assembly broke up without arriving at any decision. Then the war with the Moors of Granada absorbed the attention of the Court for several years and exhausted its financial resources. But after years of weary waiting the wish of Columbus was granted. Queen Isabella pledged some of her jewels and in other ways{37} raised a sufficient sum to equip his expedition. In the month of April, 1492, an agreement was drawn up making him Viceroy and Governor-General of all the lands he might discover and placing a number of ships and men at his disposal. On the morning of August 3d, 1492, he and his 120 comrades embarked in three small ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, and set sail from the little port of Palos, in Andalusia, on the most important voyage in history.

In a few days the expedition reached the Canary Islands, the then western boundary of the known world. Beyond this all was speculation. And of all the members of the expedition Columbus alone had unquestioning faith in the object of the enterprise. Many of the sailors believed, when they had lost sight of the European shore, that they were doomed to inevitable destruction. Thus doubting and murmuring they sailed onward week after week. At one time their discontent and fears culminated in actual mutiny, and they proposed to put Columbus in irons or throw him overboard and return, if possible, to Europe. But he alternately calmed their discontent by promises of rich rewards and awakened their fears by threats of immediate punishment. Thus for two months he kept them in hand. Then as they again grew desperate and bade fair to defy his authority altogether, indications of land not far ahead began{38} to appear. Birds hitherto unknown were seen flying above the waves and wheeling about the ships, and plants and bits of wood were seen in the water. Then the branch of a tree bearing red berries, and a curiously carved instrument, were picked up. These things inspired even the common sailors with hope that they were indeed approaching a shore.

At last, on October 8th, 1492, after sixty-five days of navigation on unknown seas, they discovered land. It was not the American continent, but one of the Bahama Islands, to which Columbus reverently gave the name of St. Salvador. It was inhabited by Indians who received the strangers kindly. Columbus formally took possession of the country in the name of the Christian religion and the King and Queen of Spain. And thus the dream of his youth was fulfilled and the ambition of his manhood was accomplished. The Western World was discovered. Subsequently he visited Cuba, Jamaica, Hayti, Porto Rico, and other islands, but did not reach the main land until his third voyage, when he visited Venezuela. He named the islands the West Indies, supposing them to be a part of the great East Indian Archipelago.

In the month of April, 1493, he returned to the Spanish Court. The City of Barcelona was ablaze with flags and the air was vocal with the roar of artillery, while all the bells of the{39} churches rang peals of triumph in his honor. Years before Columbus had come thither on foot and in rags, begging his bread. Now he rode the streets in more than royal pomp, crowned with the admiration and acclaim of all the populace. Seven natives of the Western World marched in his train, and there was an almost endless display of gold and gems, of carven idols and sculptured masks, of birds and beasts and reptiles, of trees and plants and fruits. Above all waved two banners, one that of Spain which he had unfurled above the new continent, and the other the admiral’s flag bearing in golden letters the inscription,

Thus he came to the Court where the King and Queen awaited him, and was greeted by them as their equal. There, seated among the nobles of Spain, he gave a brief account of the most striking events of his voyage. The sovereigns listened to him with profound emotion and then fell on their knees to give thanks to God for so great an achievement. For the time being no honor was too great to bestow upon Columbus. He was commissioned to make other voyages to the New World and to take possession{40} of all lands there in the name of Spain. Yet it was only a few years after that that the memory of his splendid services was outweighed by the malice of his foes. He was actually arrested, imprisoned and loaded with irons, and at the end died in disgrace and neglect, at Valladolid, May 20th, 1506.

The discovery made by Columbus was followed up by the Spaniards with the greatest enthusiasm. Within twenty years the four largest of the West Indian Islands were the seats of flourishing colonies, while as yet other nations were contenting themselves with occasional voyages of discovery along the coasts of the continent. The great fertility of the soil, the mildness of the climate, but above all the finding of gold and precious stones, kept the Spaniards alive to the importance of their new possessions and encouraged immigration. Columbus himself made four voyages to the New World, discovering, in his third voyage, the South American continent near the mouth of the Orinoco River, and reaching in his fourth, Honduras and the coast to the south of this region. He never knew what a great discovery he had made and to his death rested under the delusion that he had found the eastern shore of Asia.

In 1499 Alonzo de Ojeda, who had previously accompanied Columbus to the new country, made a voyage on his own account and explored{41} four hundred leagues of the coast of South America. With him sailed Amerigo Vespucci, who afterward made three independent voyages to America and wrote the first account of it; this was published in 1507, and popular prejudice has supposed that his name came thus to be given to the New World.

At the recent Congress of Americanists in Paris, this point was discussed with much warmth. M. Jules Marcon asserted that Vespucci’s name was Alberico instead of Amerigo, and that he changed it after the new continent was named. The true derivation of the name America is Amerique, that being the Indian name of a range of mountains in Central America. Still, some historians declare that very range of mountains to have been called Amerisque, and it is true that in the Florentine language Alberico and Amerigo are identical. Then there is extant a map of the world prepared by one Vallescu of Majorca in 1490, on the back of which is a note to the effect that the map was purchased for one hundred and twenty ducats in gold by Amerigo Vespucci, the merchant. This proves that even if his name was not Amerigo, he sometimes wrote it so.

Other voyagers were Pedro Alonzo Nigno and Vincent Pinzon, the latter being the first Spaniard to cross the equinoctial line. He discovered the mouth of the Amazon River and from there{42} sailed north to the Carribean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. In the same year (1499), Diego Lope explored the coast of South America far to the southwest.

The discovery and conquest of Mexico and Peru followed. The New World became the Mecca of every reckless and adventurous spirit in Europe. Ojeda sailed under a grant from the King of Spain to found a colony at San Sebastian, and with him went Francisco Pizarro, who thus made the first step in his adventurous career. The colony at San Sebastian was abandoned, and on the return voyage one vessel foundered. The other, commanded by Pizarro, reached Carthagena, where it was met by a fleet conveying men and provisions to the colony. On one of these ships was the adventurer Balboa, who had smuggled himself on board to escape his creditors. Learning that the colony toward which they were sailing had been deserted, Balboa proposed going to Darien, which coast he had already visited. The proposal met with favor and a new town was founded under the name of Santa Maria de la Antigua del Darien. Trouble began immediately, as usual. The man who had brought the fleet thither, Encisco, a lawyer of San Domingo, was imprisoned and Balboa was made alcade of the colony.

The natives of Darien viewed their visitors with anything but favor, and endeavored by{43} strategy to induce them to move on. They represented the neighboring district of Coyba to be much richer in gold and provisions than their own, and Pizarro, with only six men, went on an exploring expedition. The natives were found to be hostile, and on one occasion the Spaniards were surrounded by four hundred warriors, with whom they had a very bloody battle. One hundred and fifty natives were killed, many more wounded, while the Spaniards all escaped with their lives, one man only being too badly hurt to fly. Retreating to Santa Maria, they reported their misfortune, and it is to the credit of Balboa that he obliged them to return and bring back their wounded companion. Coyba was conquered, and an alliance formed with its ruler. Adjacent to it was a range of mountains, at the foot of which was a very rich and highly civilized country called Comagre. The chief invited the Spaniards to his domain, treated them with hospitality, and astonished them with the splendor of his possessions. His palace was a wonderful structure of wood, divided into many apartments. In one of these chambers, the dried and embalmed bodies of the chieftain’s ancestors, clothed in cotton robes, richly embroidered with gold and precious stones, were suspended from the walls. A large amount of gold and seventy slaves were presented to the Spaniards. One-fifth of the gold was set apart{44} for the King, and over the remainder the Christians held such a dispute that the savages were aghast. Finally the young chieftain scornfully remarked that if they were so greedy for gold, he could direct them to a country where it was more common than iron was in their land. “When you have passed this range of mountains,” he continued, “you will behold another ocean, on which are vessels only inferior to those which brought you hither, equipped with sails and oars, but navigated by people naked like ourselves.” Undoubtedly the chief alluded to Peru. This certain proof of the existence of another ocean filled Balboa with delight. He imagined that the country described formed a part of the vast region of the East Indies. Preparations for the enterprise were immediately begun, but in the midst of it all Balboa was summoned to court to answer the charges brought against him by Encisco. Instead of obeying the command, however, he determined to effect the passage to the South Sea before his successor could arrive from Spain. The Isthmus of Darien is only sixty miles in breadth, but a chain of mountains, a continuation of the Andes, runs through its whole extent. Its valleys are marshy and unhealthy, being inundated by rains which prevail nearly two-thirds of the year. These marshes are even more impenetrable than the forests which cover the mountains, and to{45} this day the crossing is not much easier than it was then.

No man but Balboa could have accomplished it. He was not any more courageous than his followers, but he possessed great powers of magnetism as well as prudence, sagacity, and amiability; in a word, he had genius, the genius of leadership. His soldiers were his children. He wished to bear the heaviest burdens himself; his post in battle was the most dangerous of all; his endurance surpassed that of the strongest men. His army consisted of one hundred and ninety Spaniards, one thousand Indians, useful to carry baggage, and some fierce blood-hounds.

Balboa set forth on the 1st of September, 1513. The journey was estimated to be of six days’ duration, but it was only after twenty-five days of desperate fighting, and of struggles with disease and fatigue, that they reached the summit of the mountain from which Balboa had been informed the great ocean could be seen.

Commanding his army to halt, Balboa advanced alone to the apex and there beheld the South Sea stretching before him in boundless extent. Amid great exultation he took formal possession of land and sea, cutting the king’s name on trees and erecting crosses and mounds of stones as records thereof.

Leaving the greater part of his men where they were, Balboa proceeded with eighty Spaniards,{46} and under the guidance of a friendly chief, toward the coast. Arriving at the borders of one of the vast bays, he rushed into the ocean with drawn sword and called upon the witnesses to observe that he possessed it in the name of Spain.

He now wished to make conquest of the countries to the south, which the natives declared to be a great and wealthy empire, but having too few men to attempt the enterprise, he returned to Darien, carrying with him a treasure valued at nearly half a million of dollars—the largest treasure yet collected in America. He sent messengers to Spain, but before these arrived Don Pedrarias Davila had been sent out to supersede him in command. The King, however, in consideration of his services, sent letters appointing Balboa Adelantado or Admiral. The enormous project of conveying ship-building material across the Isthmus was accomplished, and two brigantines were constructed. Adverse weather and other misfortunes prevented the Spaniards from reaching Peru, and Pedrarias recalled Balboa to Darien. Balboa obeyed, never dreaming of the treachery awaiting him. He was seized and imprisoned, and finally condemned to death by the jealous Pedrarias, and the sentence was carried out in spite of the protests of the colonists.

The conquest of Peru was afterward accomplished{47} by Pizarro, who, while he was as able a man as Balboa, was much more cruel and unscrupulous. Three years later Magellan entered the South Sea, after sailing around the southern extremity of the continent. It was Magellan who gave this ocean the name Pacific, in recognition of the fine weather he encountered in crossing it. His fleet reached the islands of the Indian Archipelago, and returned to Europe by way of the Cape of Good Hope, thus completing the first circumnavigation of the globe.

In the same year which witnessed the unjust execution of Balboa (1517), the northern coast of Yucatan was explored, and also the southern coast of Mexico. Instead of encountering naked savages, the explorers were surprised to find well-clad and highly civilized people, so bold and warlike as to drive off the intruders with great slaughter. Velasquez, governor of Cuba, determined to conquer the wealthy country thus discovered, and prepared a fleet of ten vessels, which he sent out under command of Hernando Cortes, a man who had already achieved some military distinction. He landed in Mexico on March 4th, 1519, where his ships and artillery, and especially his horses, created the wildest fear and astonishment among the natives, who regarded the strangers as divine beings. They were soon to be undeceived, however, for a reign of war and oppression was begun, which resulted{48} in the death of the Emperor Montezuma, the levelling of their ancient temples, and the ultimate extinction of the Aztec nation.

Meanwhile, the mainland of the American continent had been visited and partly explored.

The first voyage to the northern coast was made by John Cabot in 1497, under the auspices of Henry VIII of England. His object was less the discovery of a new continent than the finding of a northwest passage to the coast of Asia. Cabot sighted land on the 26th of June, probably the Island of Newfoundland. On the 3d of July he reached the coast of Labrador. He was then the first of modern navigators to discover the North American continent, Columbus being a whole year behind him. Cabot explored the coast for nine hundred miles, in a southerly direction, and returned to England. The next year his son, Sebastian, visited the same region, still looking for that northwest passage.

The Portuguese also, made early voyages with the same illusory object in view. In 1500, Gaspar Cortereal reached the American continent. In his second voyage his ship was lost, and his brother, who went in search of him, also perished.

In 1524, Francis I of France resolved to have a share in these new discoveries. A company of Breton sailors had already partly explored the coast. As early as 1506 the Gulf of St. Lawrence{49}

was discovered. A squadron of four ships, under Giovanni Verrazano, an Italian navigator in the service of Francis, explored the coast from the Carolinas northward, probably visiting New York and Narragansett Bays. He also searched for the northwest passage, and on his return succeeded in convincing the King that no such passage existed.

In 1534 a second expedition was fitted out under command of Jacques Cartier, a fearless mariner, who had previously made fishing voyages to the Banks of Newfoundland. This expedition consisted of two vessels, and left St. Malo on the 20th of April. After a short stay at Newfoundland, Cartier sailed northward, passed through the Straits of Belleisle and entered the St. Lawrence.

Here, on the 24th of July they landed and erected a cross, surmounted by the lilies of France. The natives proved friendly, and two men were prevailed upon to accompany the returning voyagers. The following year a second expedition was sent out under Cartier, with instructions to explore carefully the St. Lawrence, to establish a settlement, and to traffic with the Indians for gold. Of this latter commodity they found none, but the river was explored as far as the spot where now stands Montreal. The natives seem to have had a very correct knowledge of their country, for they told Cartier that{50} it would take three months to sail in their canoes up the course of the river and that it ran through several great lakes, the largest like a vast sea. Beyond the farthest lake was another river which ran in a southerly direction. This was the Mississippi. The Canadian winter had now set in and the explorers suffered terribly from the cold and disease. As soon as spring appeared they returned home. Like other adventurers of the age, they repaid the hospitality of the natives with the blackest ingratitude and treachery. They kidnapped the chief Donacona—whose village occupied the site of Quebec, and who had fed and lodged the explorers—and forced him, with eight warriors, to accompany them to France, where the unhappy savages died soon after their arrival.

The third expedition under Cartier in a fleet fitted out by De Roberval, a rich nobleman of France, was not so successful. The Indians had not forgiven the outrage perpetrated upon their chief, and the white men were received at Stradacona (Quebec) with every sign of hatred and enmity. Cartier, finding his position here so unpleasant, not to say dangerous, moved up the river to Cape Rouge, where he moored three of his vessels and sent the other two back to France for supplies. An attempt was made to found a colony, and the summer was spent in an unsuccessful search for gold. Both the colony{51} and the search for gold were abandoned after another severe winter and Cartier and his men returned to France.

It was this same greed for gold which led the Spaniards to attempt the exploration of the southern part of the American continent. As early as 1512 Juan Ponce de Leon discovered a land which he called Florida, partly because he first saw it on Easter Sunday (Pascua florida), and partly because it seemed to his delighted gaze a veritable “land of flowers.” Ponce de Leon had another object beside gold hunting; he was an old man and he loathed his years. He had come hither lured by a wonderful tale of a fountain which gave eternal youth to whosoever bathed in its waters. To find this grand restorer of vigor and bloom, Ponce de Leon and his followers wandered through terrible forests and marshes, enduring every hardship and deprivation, running hourly risks of death. That such a dream could ever have been cherished by enlightened and educated people need not appear so strange if we consider what a succession of new and astonishing scenes had passed before the eyes of the old world in the short space of ten years. No wonder their imaginations were inflamed and their credulity limitless. In this new land, of which the preceding ages had been utterly ignorant, everything was different from that with which the old world was familiar. Anything{52} seemed possible, after the impossible had happened. De Leon made two visits after his fountain; in the second one he was killed by the Indians.

In 1528 Pamphilo de Narvaez made an effort to take possession of Florida in the name of Charles V of Germany. He met with such hostility from the natives, however, that after months of wandering he reached the Gulf with a mere handful of men out of the six hundred with whom he had landed. Building five miserable boats, these crazy adventurers attempted to follow the line of the coast to the Mexican settlements. Four boats were lost in a storm; the survivors landed and sought to cross the continent to the Spanish colonies at Sonora. It seems incredible, but in this enterprise four of the men actually succeeded. Among them was Cabeca de Vaca, treasurer of the expedition. Their appearance in Europe nine years after their departure caused the greatest sensation, and the excitement created by their narrative was intense. The passion for adventure became stronger than ever among the Spaniards, and when the already celebrated Hernando de Soto, who had been with Pizarro in Peru, asked for and was granted permission to take possession of Florida in the name of Ferdinand of Spain, he had a multitude of volunteers to his standard.

De Soto was first appointed governor of Cuba{53} that he might turn to account the resources of that wealthy island. His fleet of nine vessels and force of six hundred men, sailed from Havana on the 18th of May, 1539, and ten days later anchored in Tampa Bay. The first remarkable adventure that befel them was an encounter with one of the companions of Cabeca de Vaca, who had been held all this time captive among the Indians. He had acquired a thorough knowledge of their language, and his services as mediator and interpretor soon became invaluable.

Led by Ortiz—the captive—the explorers wandered through the unknown land until spring. Then a native offered to guide them to a distant country, governed by a woman, and rich in “yellow metal,” which the Spaniards understood to be gold, but which turned out to be only copper. The dominion of the Indian queen was reached at last, after much fighting and bloodshed. The old chronicles give a picturesque and rather pathetic account of the meeting between the poor cacica and the invaders. She came forth to welcome them, alighting from her litter and making gestures of pleasure and amity, taking from her neck a heavy string of pearls and presenting it to De Soto. He accepted the gift, and for a time kept up a pretense of friendship; but, having obtained all the information the queen had to give, he made her prisoner and robbed her and her people of all{54} their valuables, even pillaging the graves of dead nobles for pearls. It is gratifying to know that the queen effected her escape from the guards, and that she regained a box of pearls on which De Soto set especial store.

The Spaniards now altered their course, and, taking a northwesterly direction, they found themselves, after a few months, at the foot of the Appalachian range of mountains, which, rather than cross, they turned their backs upon, and wandered into the lowlands of what is now Alabama, ignorant of the fact that these very mountains were rich in the gold they so ardently coveted.

The autumn of 1540 brought what remained of the party to a large village called Mavilla, the site of the modern city of Mobile, where a terrible battle took place. Mavilla was burned to ashes, and when the fight ended the victorious Spaniards found themselves in a desperate situation—at a distance from their ships, their provisions gone, and enemies on every side. The common soldiers, by this time, had had quite enough of exploration, and wished to return to the coast. But De Soto, who had received secret information that his fleet was even now anchored in the Bay of Pensacola, six days’ journey from Mavilla, determined to make one more effort to redeem his honor by a notable discovery of some sort. He forced his men to journey northward,{55} and in December they reached a Chickasaw village, in what is now the State of Mississippi. By spring they had fought their way completely across the State, and in May they reached the banks of the mighty river from which the State takes its name. Not knowing that he had made his great discovery, De Soto went to work to build boats and barges with which to cross the river. Constantly harassed by the natives, the explorers continued their northward wanderings until they reached the region of the present State of Missouri. Proceeding westward, they encamped for the winter at the present location of Little Rock, Arkansas. But the spot turned out to be an unhealthy one; the white men began to succumb to disease; Juan Ortiz, the chief helper, died; scouts sent out to explore the neighborhood brought back darkest reports of impenetrable wildernesses, and of bands of hostiles creeping up from every side to attack them. Saddest of all, De Soto, broken with disease and long endurance, lay down to rise no more. Calling his little army around him, he asked their pardon for the sufferings he had brought upon them, and named Luis de Alvaredo as his successor. The following day the unhappy De Soto breathed his last, and was buried secretly outside the camp; but, fearing an immediate attack from the natives should the death of the hero be made known, and the newly-made grave{56} exciting suspicion among the Indians in the neighborhood, Alvaredo had the corpse disinterred in the night, and, wrapped in clothes made heavy with sand, dropped into the Mississippi.

Alvaredo then led his people westward, hoping to reach the Pacific coast. But after long months of wandering, and dreading to be overtaken by winter on the prairies, they retraced their steps to the Mississippi, where they pitched camp and spent six months building boats in which to go down the river. A terrible voyage of seventeen days, between banks lined with Indians, who plied them pitilessly with poisoned arrows, brought them to the Gulf, and a further weary cruise along the coast of Louisiana and Texas landed them at the Spanish settlement of Panuco, in Mexico. This was in October, 1543; they had been wandering for nearly four years.

The English were rather tardy in following the lead of the Spanish, French, and Portuguese explorers, but, once started, they pursued their researches with great vigor. In 1562 one of their adventurers, Sir John Hawkins, engaged in the slave trade, and carried cargoes of negroes to the West Indies. In 1577, Sir Francis Drake accomplished the circumnavigation of the globe. Attempts were made at the same period to discover the northwestern passage, by Willoughby, Frobisher, Henry Hudson, and others. The{57} only attempt to found a colony in the New World during this century was made by Sir Walter Raleigh; his step-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had obtained the first charter ever granted an Englishman for a colony, but his project failed, and he himself perished at sea.

A patent was granted Raleigh, constituting him lord proprietary, with almost unlimited powers, according to the Christian Protestant faith, of all land which he might discover between the thirty-third and fortieth degrees of north latitude. Under this patent Raleigh dispatched two vessels under the command of Philip Amidas and Arthur Barlow. They landed on the island of Wococken and took possession in the name of Queen Elizabeth. The country they called Virginia, and such glowing accounts did they send back to England that seven vessels under Sir Richard Grenville were sent out, bearing one hundred and fifty colonists. As soon as these landed, Sir Richard Grenville took the ships back to England, capturing a rich Spanish prize on the way. The colony fared very badly after a time, Lane, the governor, being utterly unfit for his office. The Indians wishing to get rid of their visitors, induced them to ascend the Roanoke River, on the upper banks of which, they declared, dwelt a nation skillful in refining gold, whose city was inclosed with a wall of pearls. After the gold rushed the colonists, but{58} they found only famine and distress. The Indians, on their return, refused to give them any more provisions, and even ceased to cultivate corn, hoping to drive out the Englishmen altogether. In revenge, the white men, having invited the chief to a conference, fell upon him and slew him, with many of his people. This was the end of their peaceful relations with the Indians. The colony was on the verge of starvation when Sir Francis Drake, the slave-trading nobleman, appeared outside the harbor with a fleet of twenty-three ships. At the urgent prayer of the starving settlers, Sir Francis carried them back to England. Hardly had they gone before a ship laden with supplies, dispatched by Raleigh, arrived. Finding the colony vanished, the ship returned. Before it reached England, Sir Richard Grenville arrived at Roanoke with three ships. After searching in vain for the missing colony, he also returned, leaving fifteen men on the island to hold possession for the English. Still undiscouraged, Raleigh sent out a second colony, this time choosing agriculturists, and sending with them their wives and children. On reaching Roanoke they found the bones of the fifteen men Grenville had left, and the fort in ruins. Meanwhile the Spanish invasion was threatening England. Raleigh was one of the most active in devising schemes for resistance. It was almost a year before{59} he was able to send supplies to his colony at Roanoke; this he did at last, but the captain, instead of proceeding straight on his mission, went in chase of two Spanish prizes, came to grief, and was obliged to return to England. By this time Raleigh’s means were almost exhausted, but he managed to send out the relief ships, but they arrived too late. The island was a desert and the only clue to the fate of the colony was the word “Croatian” on the bark of a tree. It has been conjectured that they escaped, through the kindness of the Indians to Croatian; perhaps they were received into some tribe and became a part of the wild men; the Indians themselves have such a tradition. Raleigh sent five different search parties after his little colony, but none of them ever had the least success.

In 1602 Bartholomew Gosnold reached the shores of Massachusetts, and, sailing southward, landed on a promontory which he called Cape Cod. He also discovered the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. On the former they built a store-house and a fort, and prepared to settle, but when the ships got ready to sail, they lost their resolution and insisted upon returning to England.{60}

CHAPTER II.

“GOOD OLD COLONY TIMES.”

THE history of the United States may be said to have begun with the formation in England of a company for the purpose of forming colonies in America. This was called the Virginia Company, and to it was given the right to hold all the land from Cape Fear to the St. Croix River. The Company had two divisions—the London Company, with control over the southern territory, and the Plymouth Company, controlling the northern. It was the London Company who founded the first colony. Three vessels, under Captain Christopher Newport, sailed from England in the year 1607, with instructions to land on Roanoke Island. A storm drove them into Chesapeake Bay, and so delighted were they with the beauty of its shores that they determined to settle there. Sailing up the James River, they found a convenient spot for landing, and on the 13th of May the colony of Jamestown was established. There were about a hundred men in the party, many of them gentlemen of more or less precarious fortune, whose object in leaving their native land was almost entirely selfish. They expected to find gold, and so great was their greed that they went directly to{61} washing dust, instead of cultivating the ground. The summer that followed was a terrible one. The location proved unhealthy, and more than half the colony died of a pestilence. Only the friendly generosity of the Indians saved the rest from starvation. The situation was rendered more unendurable by quarrels and dissensions in the Governing Council, which consisted of seven men appointed before leaving England. In this Council had been Gosnold, the explorer, Captain Newport, and Captain John Smith. This latter personage was a man of marked individuality, one of those characters not uncommon in history, who are as cordially detested by half the world as they are warmly admired by the other half. At first prevented by his enemies from taking his place in the Council at all, arrested and kept under a cloud for months, the following autumn finds him in supreme and solitary control of the entire colony.

Things began to brighten a little at Jamestown. Supplies were plenty, and, under the careful management of Smith, promised to last all winter. Having nothing else to complain about, the dissenters now began to mutter against Smith for not having discovered the source of the Chickahominy, the theory being that the South Sea, or Pacific Ocean, was not far distant, and that some river running from the northwest would be sure to lead to it. Whether{62} or not Smith had much hope of reaching the Pacific via the Chickahominy River is uncertain, but he did make an attempt to trace the stream to its head.

His adventures on that memorable voyage have been told in every history of the colonies and in every school geography since. How much is truth and how much imagination it is impossible to decide; it should be stated that the original story came from a person not so much celebrated for veracity as for other excellent qualities—that is to say, from Captain John Smith himself.

Nine white men accompanied him on the trip up the river. When at length the barge could advance no further, Captain Smith returned some miles to a bay, where he moored his bark out of danger, and, taking two men and two Indian guides, he proceeded in a canoe twenty miles higher up the river. The men in the barge had strict orders not to leave until their commander returned. As soon as he was fairly out of sight, the order was disobeyed; the men went on shore, and one of them was killed by Indians.

Smith, meantime, had neared the head of the river. The country was very wet and marshy, but there was no indication of the proximity of the Pacific Ocean. The canoe was tied up, and Smith took his gun and one Indian and went on{63} shore after food for his party. But, as it turned out, the landing-place was ill-chosen. The two men in the canoe were set upon by Indians and killed, and Smith, after a desperate resistance, was captured. He asked for their chief, and was led before Opechancanough. Smith presented to him a mariner’s compass, which so entertained the savages that they forbore their first murderous intentions and contented themselves with leading him captive to the town of Orapakes, which was about twelve miles from what is now the city of Richmond. Here he was confined in one of the houses, and an enormous quantity of food set before him. It is not probable that his appetite was very good, under the circumstances. His captivity was not devoid of pleasant features, however; an Indian, who had received some kindness at the hands of the Jamestown colonists, showed his gratitude by presenting to Smith a warm fur garment. While the orgies and incantations were going on—supposedly with a view to divine the prisoner’s intentions concerning the Indians—Opitchapan, brother of Chief Opechancanough, who dwelt a little above, came down to see the great white man, and entertained him hospitably.

At last it was decided to take the prisoner to the chief place of council, and to let the exalted Powhatan pronounce his fate. Accordingly they journeyed to Werowocomoco, on the York River{64}—then known as the Pamaunkee. Here they found Powhatan, reclining in rude state on a sort of a throne covered with mats, and further adorned by the presence of two dusky maidens, splendid with feathers and beads and red paint. The captive was received with solemn ceremony, a feast was spread, and then a long consultation took place. The result was a sentence of death.

Two large stones are brought and laid one upon the other before Powhatan; behold savage hands seize upon the unhappy Smith and lay his head upon the stones; the war-clubs are poised in air, the chief’s hand starts to give the fatal sign; at the foot of the throne, one gentle heart is throbbing wildly with mingled love and fear; poor little Pocahontas, while the stones were being brought, put in her plea for mercy, but it was not even noticed; she is the dearest thing in the world to that stern old chief, but even she has never yet dared dispute his authority. But when she sees that hand raised, her fear is swept away, everything is swept away but love; she utters one mad cry, and, flying from her place, throws herself down beside him, clasps his form in her arms and lays her head upon his. The fairest woman in the world saves the bravest man. Oh! most charming picture in history! Men pretend to believe that it is all a fabrication. What if it is? To leave it out of the history books takes all the color from the{65}

story of those days. If it didn’t happen, it might have happened. Certainly something happened, for two days later Smith was permitted to return to Jamestown on the absurd little condition of sending back two great guns and a grindstone. This condition Smith faithfully fulfilled, to his credit, and in addition to the cannon and the grindstone he sent presents to Powhatan’s wives and children. Records are so stupid at times; they are careful in this case to mention the grindstone, but they give not the slightest hint of what Captain Smith sent Pocahontas. Smith’s conduct all through that affair is puzzling. By every canon of romance, he should have married the princess. That it was otherwise is the best proof of the truth of the story, for true stories always end inartistically.

When Smith returned to Jamestown, he found things going very badly, and the number of the colonists reduced to forty. He set to work to encourage them, and to make his task easier, a ship laden with stores and with additional settlers now arrived. The Indians were friendly, and great numbers of them appeared at Jamestown to trade. Pocahontas came, too, and brought all sorts of things to Captain Newport and to Smith, which she had undoubtedly wheedled out of her father, the great Powhatan.

When Captain Newport returned to England, he took with him twenty turkeys which Powhatan{66} had given him in exchange for twenty swords. This bargain pleased the old chief so much that he tried to effect a similar one with Smith. Failing, and becoming infuriated, he ordered his people to go to Jamestown and take the weapons by force. The President of the colony, under pretense of orders from England not to offend the natives, would have allowed the robbery to take place, but Smith rose in wrath and drove the intruders from the settlement.

Another ship, the “Phœnix,” now arrived. The colony was increased to nearly two hundred souls. There were plenty of provisions and the sword difficulty, thanks to the mediation of Pocahontas, had been amicably settled, so that all hostilities were at an end for the time being. The year was 1608.

Smith continued his explorations, sailing around Chesapeake Bay and up to the head of the Potomac River. He traveled not less than three thousand miles that summer, and that his worth was beginning to be appreciated at Jamestown is evidenced by the fact that on his return he had the pleasure of accepting the presidency of the colony. This had been offered him before, but he had declined it.

Now he set about his duties in earnest. The men were put to work, some making glass, preparing tar and pitch, while Smith with thirty others went five miles below the fort to cut down{67} trees and to saw planks. The Jamestown colony was always unfortunate in having too many adventurer-gentlemen in it. Smith had a hard time with them, but by his tact and good management he got more work out of them than any one else could have done.

Their life, diversified with some struggles with the Indians, a good deal of internal bickering and considerable ill-luck with crops, etc., continued for another year. In 1609 an addition to the colony of five hundred men and women, with stores and provisions, set sail from England. But these new settlers had no sooner landed than new troubles began. The leaders, although they brought no commission with them, insisted on assuming authority over the original colony, defying Smith, whom they feared and hated.

Anarchy reigned for a time. The ring-leaders, Ratcliffe, Archer, and others, were imprisoned. West, with one hundred and twenty men, formed an independent settlement at the falls of the James River, and another one hundred and twenty, under Martin, established themselves at Nansemond. But these leaders were unable to deal fairly with the Indians, and the new settlements were abandoned after much bloodshed. Smith did what he could to effect peace, but failing, gave up in disgust and returned to England.

After his departure, things went from bad to worse. Within six months vice and starvation{68} had reduced the colony from five hundred to sixty persons, and these must also have perished had not relief come from England.

Shortly afterward Lord Delaware was sent out to be Governor of the colony. He brought with him supplies and a large number of emigrants. Following these came seven hundred more. The land, which had hitherto been held in common, was divided among the colonists, and an era of wise government and contented prosperity began. In 1613 Pocahontas married John Rolfe, and this event improved greatly the relations between the white people and the Indians. But three years after it occurred, Pocahontas and her husband went to Europe, where the gentle little woman died. She was deeply mourned by her husband and by her people, for she was not only good but she was beautiful and very clever. Powhatan did not long survive his daughter, and thus were the two best friends of the white men removed. The rapid increase of the colonists, and the spread of their settlements, began to alarm the Indians, and in 1622 a conspiracy was formed to destroy and wipe out the invasion of Europeans.

It is necessary to mention one or two events in the colony before this year. In 1615 the cultivation of tobacco was begun on a large scale. Other pursuits were neglected and corn was scarcely raised at all. The new article of commerce{69} proved so profitable that it became a perfect mania. In 1619 the first legislative body ever organized in America met at Jamestown, where a colonial constitution was adopted. The next year (1620) a Dutch man-of-war sailed up the James and landed twenty negroes who were sold as slaves. The same year a cargo of young white women were sent over and sold as wives—a position supposed to be a little better than that of slaves. The price paid was one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco per wife.

The colonists were unprepared for the hostilities which followed the death of Powhatan. His dominion passed to his brother Opitchapan, a feeble old man feared by no one. But there was one man who soon began to incite the natives to war. This man was the captor of Smith, Opechancanough. He has been called by some the brother of Powhatan, but this opinion is erroneous. He came of one of the tribes of the southwest, probably Mexico, and rose to his position of leader only through his natural ability to govern. Inspired with a hatred of the white men, he visited in person all the tribes of the confederacy of Powhatan and roused them to murderous fury. A few people in the colony scented danger, but the majority were so secure in the belief of safety that it was impossible to induce them to take measures for their own protection. The settlements were now eighty in{70} number and spread in separate plantations over a space of three or four hundred miles.

On Friday, the 22d day of March, 1622, the Indians came into the settlements as usual with game and fish and fruits, which they offered for sale in the market place. Suddenly a shrill signal cry rang out, and then began a hideous scene of blood and death. In one morning three hundred and forty-nine settlers were massacred. It is remarkable that one single white man should have escaped, but surprised and defenseless as they were, the settlers rallied and actually succeeded in putting their assailants to flight. The village of Jamestown was warned of its danger by a young Indian woman, preparations for defense were hurriedly made, but no assault occurred.

The wildest panic now seized the colonists. Distant plantations were abandoned, and in a short time, instead of eighty settlements, there were only six, and these were huddled closely around Jamestown. The war with the Indians kept up incessantly. Opechancanough pursued the white men with deadly hatred, and the white men never lost an opportunity of murdering an Indian.

In 1624 the London Company was dissolved, and Virginia was declared a royal government. The colony retained the right to a representative assembly and of trial by jury. All the succeeding{71} colonies claimed these rights, so that it was in Virginia that the foundation of American independence was laid.

Indian hostilities continued—grew worse, in fact, as the whites increased in number and in power. There was but one end to such an unequal struggle. It came about the year 1643. Opechancanough was a very old man—he had lived a hundred years; he could no longer walk alone—his very eyelids had to be lifted by the fingers of an attendant; but within his withered frame the spirit of hatred and bitterness was as full of energy as ever. His power over the confederacy of Powhatan was as great as of old, and once again he roused the savages to an attempt at a general massacre.

Five hundred white men were butchered, but Sir William Berkeley, placing himself at the head of a large body of troops, marched against the Indians and not only utterly routed them, but captured their aged chief and took him back to Jamestown. The confederacy instantly dissolved, and the white men’s power over the land was established more firmly than ever.

The second permanent settlement in the United States—or what is now the United States—was made by the Dutch in 1614. A fort was built on the extremity of the island on which New York now stands; another was erected at the site of the city of Albany, and{72} the country between was called New Netherlands. The next year a settlement of some importance was made at Albany, but for many years the fort on Manhattan Island was a mere trading-post.

The first thing the Dutch did was to make{73} treaties with the Indians. The Five Nations had long been at war with the Algonquins in Canada. The latter had allied with the French, who had settled there some years before, and with their aid defeated the Iroquois. It was with the hope of similar reinforcement that the Iroquois now hastened to make friends with this new colony of white men. The great treaty was made in 1618, on the banks of Norman’s Kill, and was witnessed by ambassadors from every tribe of the Five Nations. The pipe of peace was smoked and the hatchet buried, and on the spot where the emblem of war was hidden the Dutch vowed to erect a church.

Thus was the quiet possession of the country and of the Indian trade guaranteed the inhabitants of New Netherlands.

The actual colonization of the place began at once, but it was not until 1625 that a governor was appointed. In 1631 the Dutch possessions extended from Cape Henlopen to Cape Cod. This claim was disputed by the English settlers in New England, who also formed colonies on Long Island and in Connecticut. They endeavored to trade with the Hudson River Indians, and finally, in 1633, an English ship appeared at New Amsterdam. The governor, old Wouter van Twiller, ordered it to depart, but the captain, one Jacob Eelkins, went on shore, and, in a friendly sort of a way, requested{74} permission to ascend the river. He added, casually, that while he would be very grateful for the permission, he intended to proceed whether it was granted or not. The governor’s answer was to order the Prince of Orange’s flag to be run up on the fort, and a salute of three guns to be fired for Holland. Whereupon Eelkins ran up the English flag, and saluted with three guns the King of England. Then he sailed up the river to Fort Orange, where he set up a lively trade with the natives. This was the beginning of a gradual usurpation of power.

Trouble with the Indians now began, which lasted until 1645. In 1638 the Swedes settled on the Delaware near the site of Wilmington, and{75} extended their possessions until, in 1655, the Dutch attacked and conquered them. In 1664 the King of England granted his brother James all the country between the Connecticut and the Delaware. He had not the smallest right to do so, for the land belonged to the Dutch both by right of discovery and of settlement. England and Holland were at peace, and the overthrow of the Dutch dominion in America was an act of glaring injustice, and it is only surprising that Holland made such feeble resistance.

There is little that is important but much that is interesting in the history of these Dutch settlements. Slavery had been in existence since 1628, but it was slavery in a comparatively mild form. It was allowed a man to purchase his own freedom, and a great number of slaves did so. A very democratic spirit reigned throughout the colony. The republican sentiment which they had brought with them from Holland, never left these settlers. There was no religious persecution, no intolerance, no such cruel wrongs committed in the name of right as in New England. They were good, honest burghers. They built mills and breweries, and raised fat cattle and grew fat themselves and were very happy.

The first attempt to colonize New England was made by Gosnold in 1602, and was unsuccessful. In 1606 the Plymouth company established a settlement at the mouth of the Kennebec{76} River, but the forty-five daring spirits of which it was composed abandoned it after a winter of suffering, and returned to England. Captain John Smith explored the coast in 1614, making a map of its length and giving it its present name. His earnest attempts at colonization failed, and it was not until the arrival of the Puritans in 1620 that a permanent settlement was formed.

These Puritans, it is scarcely necessary to explain, were the most austere of the English “Non-Conformists,” or dissenters of the Established Church. Most of them were Nottinghamshire farmers, and so mercilessly were they persecuted at home on account of their religion that they determined to emigrate to Holland, where a London congregation had fled some years before, and where they in turn were followed by a Lincolnshire congregation. Holland becoming the seat of violent political agitation, they resolved to emigrate to America. In July, 1620, they embarked for England in the ship “Speedwell.” At Southampton they met the “Mayflower,” which was also engaged for the voyage. They put to sea twice, but were obliged to return, as the “Speedwell” proved unseaworthy. Finally the “Mayflower” sailed alone on the 6th of September. Their destination was a point near the Hudson River, just within the boundaries of the territory of the London{77} Company. This must have been the sea-coast of the State of New Jersey.

At early dawn of the 9th of November, 1620, the white sand-banks of Massachusetts came into sight; their course lay to the south, but so dangerous became the shoals and breakers that they resolved to retrace their vessel’s way, and two days later, at noon, they dropped anchor in the bay formed by the curved peninsula which terminates in Cape Cod.

Here, while the vessel lay at anchor, a brief governmental compact was drawn up, and John Carver, who had been very prominent in obtaining the King’s permission for their enterprise, was chosen governor of the colony. In the afternoon “fifteen or sixteen men well armed” were sent on shore to reconnoitre and to collect fuel. They returned at evening bringing good report of the country, and the welcome news that there was neither person nor dwelling in sight. The next day was Sunday, which the emigrants kept as strictly as usual. Monday morning, while the women washed and the men began their labors by hauling a boat on shore for repairs, Miles Standish and sixteen men set off on foot to explore the country. They returned Friday evening bringing some Indian corn which they had found in a deserted hut. The explorations were kept up for several weeks. At last a suitable{78} location was decided upon; there was a convenient harbor, the country was well wooded; it had clay, sand, and shells for bricks and mortar, and stone for chimneys; there was plenty of good water, and the sea and beach contained a plentiful supply of fish and fowl. It was on Christmas Day that they landed. The record says: “Monday, the 25th day, we went on shore, some to fell timber, some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry; so no man rested all that day.” They first erected a building for common occupation. Nineteen plots for dwelling-houses were laid out, and in spite of the bitter cold the little settlement gradually built itself into a town. Sickness set in, and within four months’ time one-half of their number was swept away. It was a terrible winter, but there was no inclination to weaken or to despond on the part of the heroic Pilgrims. They were in constant fear of the Indians, and the necessity for defenses becoming daily more apparent, a military organization was formed, with the valiant Miles Standish as Captain, and the fortification on the hill overlooking the dwellings was mounted with five guns.

“Warm and fair weather” came at last; and never could spring have seemed fairer to these people than when it greeted them first in New England. The colony at Plymouth grew and{79} prospered. The Indians made several threats of hostility but were each time repressed by Miles Standish and his men.

In 1628 another settlement was made at Salem, under John Endicott. The next year this colony was large enough to admit of a lively quarrel, the consequence of which was a division of interests and the establishment of Charlestown. In 1630 the “Colony of Massachusetts Bay” was augmented by the arrival of a large number of settlers, many of them being people of education and refinement. The towns of Boston, Watertown, Roxbury, and Dorchester were founded. In August the first Court of Assistants met since the arrival of the colonists, and voted to build houses and to raise salaries for ministers. This year was made a bold step toward the establishment of civil liberty in the removing of the governing council from England to Massachusetts. In 1633 the settlement of Connecticut was begun. In another year there were “between three and four thousand Englishmen distributed among twenty hamlets along and near the seashore.”

It seems a good deal of a pity that these grand old Pilgrim Fathers had so little sense of humor, else the absurdity of allowing no one liberty of conscience, after they themselves had fled from just such a state of affairs, must have dawned upon them. The early history of New England{80} is one long catalogue of religious persecutions. To the first of these is due the settlement of Rhode Island. Later dissensions helped to people Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire.

Roger Williams was a talented young Puritan preacher who had been driven out of England by the intolerance of Archbishop Laud. Arriving in Boston, he found himself quite as much out of harmony with the Church in that place as he had been with the Church of England. He was subsequently called to a Salem pastorate, where his doctrines were very popular; everywhere else in the colonies they were regarded as abominable. No wonder, for the obnoxious parson declared boldly that it was wrong to enforce an oath of allegiance to any monarch or magistrate, that all religious sects had a right to claim equal protection from the laws, and that civil magistrates had no right to restrain the consciences of men, or to interfere with their modes of worship or religious beliefs. This heretical doctrine, if carried to its logical conclusion, would permit even Roman Catholics and Quakers to dwell in peace! It was decided to send Williams to England, where he would undoubtedly have fared ill, for he had preached a crusade against the cross of St. George in the English standard, pronouncing it a relic of superstition and idolatry, and so inflaming the{81}

hearts of his people, that Endicott, one of the members of the Court of Assistants, publicly cut out the cross from the flag displayed before the governor’s house. So Williams refused to obey the order to return to England, and, leaving the colony with a few of his friends, traveled southward, and planted a settlement which he named Providence. This was in 1636. The following year his new colony was reinforced by another company of religious refugees, who merit more than passing notice.

New England had become the Mecca of all who were estranged from the Established Church at home. Crowds of new settlers flocked thither, lured by the hope of what they called religious liberty. Among these were two especially conspicuous figures—Hugh Peters, the enthusiastic chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, and Henry Vane, son of Sir Henry Vane, a Privy Counsellor in high favor with the King. Vane was received in the colony with great admiration; and indeed, the religious zeal which induced him to relinquish all his prospects in England and embrace poverty and exile for conscience’ sake is to be highly commended. His humility of manner and rigidity in religious observances, as well as his business ability, caused him to be elected governor of the colony about as soon as he arrived. But practical duties occupied little of his attention; he was almost entirely taken up{82} with theological subtleties and doctrinal hair-splittings. These were excited still further by a woman whose influence at that time began to create great disturbance throughout the entire colony. It was the custom in New England for the chief men in the congregations to hold weekly meetings, in order to repeat and discuss the sermon of the previous Sunday. From these meetings women were sternly excluded, and one Mrs. Hutchinson, whose husband was a prominent man in the colony, began to assemble in her house a number of women, who held pious exercises similar to those of the men. At first Mrs. Hutchinson satisfied herself with repeating the sermons and teachings of the clergyman, but soon she began to pick flaws in the discourses and to add opinions of her own. She taught that sanctity of works was no sign of spiritual safety, but that God dwelt personally within all good men, and it was alone by inward revelations and impressions that they received the discoveries of the divine will. It was all very abstract and unhealthy, but so eloquently was it set forth and proclaimed by the prophetess that she gained a vast number of proselytes, not alone among the women, but the men as well. Vane defended and upheld her wildest theories, and, following his example, the interest increased. The dissension grew more bitter with every conference, every day of fasting and humiliation held by the{83} new sect. Finally, in 1637, Mrs. Hutchinson was banished, and many of her disciples withdrew voluntarily and joined the Providence population. Vane returned to England in disgust, and no one lamented his departure.

Roger Williams’s colony, so largely increased, purchased from the Indians a fertile island in Narragansett Bay, to which they gave the name Rhode Island. In this community no religious persecutions were allowed. The humane principles of its founder were firmly instilled into the hearts of the people, and Rhode Island soon became a refuge for the oppressed of all the other settlements.

Connecticut owes its origin to similar causes. The rivalship of two pastors in the Massachusetts Bay settlement resulted in the victory of Mr. Cotton over Mr. Hooker; the latter, however, was not deserted, by any means, and when he proposed establishing a colony of his own at a distance from his rival, a goodly number of his friends and some of Mrs. Hutchinson’s admirers offered to accompany him. The west bank of the Connecticut River was decided upon as an inviting spot, and in 1636 about a hundred men, with their wives and children and chattels, after a terrible march through wildernesses of swamp and forest, arrived there and laid the foundation of a town.

Pennsylvania was granted, in 1681, to William{84} Penn, who had previously been interested in the settlement of Quakers in New Jersey. He soon after obtained a grant of the present State of Delaware, then called “The Territories.” In September, 1682, he set sail for his new province, with a large number of his co-religionists. The story of their peaceful settlement is familiar to all. The code of laws governing them had for its foundation the principle of civil and religious liberty. Penn returned to England in 1684, leaving the city of Philadelphia, which he had founded and named, a prosperous town of three hundred houses and a population of two thousand five hundred. These Quakers, it must be said, had very little in common with the sect which was so persecuted in the New England States. These latter were really a body of separatists, called Ranters, and their excesses were such as to justify the horror and disgust of any community.

The settlement of the southern colonies of the United States maybe dealt with briefly. Georgia was not settled until 1732. The provinces of North and South Carolina were originally one. The earliest permanent settlements were made by emigrants from Virginia in 1650. In 1665 another settlement was made by a party of planters from Barbadoes. A Huguenot colony from France was sent out by the King of England. The city of Charlestown was founded, and{85} was at once made the capital of the colony. The most interesting feature attending the settlement of the Carolinas was the “Grand Model Government” devised by John Locke, the celebrated English philosopher. The object was to make the colony as nearly as possible like the monarchy of which it was a part, and to “avoid erecting a numerous democracy.” The scheme never took root in Carolina. The Grand Nobles, Palatines, Caciques, and other exalted officers were in absurd contrast to the rude cabins and pioneer habits of living. For twenty years efforts were made to establish it, and the discord of which the contest was the cause materially interfered with the rapid growth of the colony.

The State of Virginia was also inclined to an aristocratic form of government; its people boasted themselves “staunch advocates of the Church of England and partisans of the King.” When Charles I was executed, they accepted the Commonwealth without a pretense of enthusiasm, and when Charles II came to the throne they welcomed the change with great rejoicings. Shortly afterward, however, a royal governor, Sir William Berkley, was sent out to them, and such a tyrant he proved to be that the people became exasperated. Commercial laws were instituted that bade fair to beggar the planters; tobacco, for instance, could be sent to none but English ports, and it had not only to pay a large{86} duty on reaching England, but it was taxed heavily before leaving. The government took no steps to repress the Indian outrages which were constantly occurring; the Assembly, instead of being elected every two years, was kept permanently in session, and the country was overrun with office-seekers. The culmination of these troubles was the outbreak known as the Bacon Rebellion, which commenced in 1675, and grew principally out of the indifference of the authorities on the Indian question. Nothing decisive was gained by this rebellion, but it is mentioned to show the disposition of the people against tyranny.

The other English colonies were instituted under conditions of liberality, and, in spite of their bigotry and intolerance, they enjoyed far more religious and political liberty than any European country of that day. The home government took no part in their original formation, except in the very easy requirements of the charters granted the proprietors. Lord Baltimore was left at full liberty to establish his own form of government in Maryland, and his preference was extremely liberal. William Penn was not interfered with in Pennsylvania. The government of Plymouth was formed without any restriction or even suggestion from abroad, by a party of self-reliant men, who were well fitted by temperament and experience for self-government.{87} All the New England colonies gradually assumed the prerogatives of government, even to the power of capital punishment. In 1643 a further step in the evolution of a republic was made; the colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Haven, and Plymouth united under the title of The United Colonies of New England. Rhode Island was not admitted, because she would not consent to be incorporated with Plymouth. Rhode Island differed from all the colonies, in that there was no religious restriction to the rights of citizenship. New Hampshire was then a part of the Massachusetts colony. The governing body of the confederacy consisted of an annual Assembly of two deputies from each colony—whose local government continued as before. This independence was scarcely interfered with by the mother country until after the death of Cromwell. With the re-establishment of the monarchy came the desire to restrict the liberties of the colonies, grown flourishing and important. Charles II granted his brother James, the Duke of York, the whole territory from the Connecticut River to the shores of the Delaware, and this grant was followed by the illegal seizure of New Amsterdam, thereafter New York. The Duke of York made Edmund Andros governor of the province, and began a series of tyrannies, which only increased with the accession of the Duke to the throne. Andros{88} was now made governor of all the New England provinces, his rule extending over New York. On arriving in Boston, in 1686, he immediately demanded a surrender of all the charters of the colonies, while edicts were issued annuling the existing liberties of the people. Connecticut refused to give up its charter, and Andros marched to Hartford with a body of soldiers to enforce the order. This was in 1687. An entirely new order of things now began. The liberty of the press was restrained, and the laws for the support of the clergy were suspended. Magistrates only were allowed to perform marriage ceremonies. The people were taxed at the governor’s pleasure, and, above all, titles of the colonists to their lands were declared of no value. Indian deeds Sir Edmund esteemed no better than a “scratch of a bear’s claw.” Even grants by charter and declarations of preceding kings were insufficient. The owners were obliged to take out patents for their estates, and in some cases a fee of fifty pounds was demanded. People were fined and imprisoned in the most arbitrary way; all town meetings were prohibited, except the one in May; no person was permitted to leave the country without leave from the governor. Despite his pains, however, petitions were sent to England, but if they were read they were not heeded. Early in 1689 came the news of the accession of William of Orange. The people{89} immediately rose up against Andros, and forced him to leave the country. In New York State a similar uprising against their tyrant, the lieutenant of Andros, took place at the same time, known as the Leisler Revolt.

The people renewed their former mode of government, without being interfered with, at first, by the new monarch. In 1692 a new charter was granted Massachusetts, which differed from the original one in little, except that the King reserved the right to appoint a royal governor.

About this time the influence of the several wars which had raged in Europe between England and France began to manifest itself in the colonies of those countries in America. Invasions of each other’s territory became frequent, in which the Indians took part, glad of a chance to give vent to their savage instincts in murdering the white men. King William’s war raged from 1689 to 1697. In 1702 another war broke out between France and England, and was marked by much bloodshed in America. The Iroquois were neutral in this contest, thus preserving New York from danger, the weight of suffering falling upon New England. The English invasion of Canada was begun in 1710, when Port Royal was captured and its name changed to Annapolis. Nova Scotia—or Acadia—was permanently added to the English possessions. In 1713 the war ended, with the peace of Utrecht,{90} and in the succeeding thirty years of tranquillity the colonies gained rapidly in population and importance. Hostilities broke out again in 1744, and scarcely ceased until the close of the French and Indian war.

This war, unlike the others, had its origin in America and ended in a decided change in the relative positions of the French and English colonies. The original basis of the contest was a dispute as to the ownership of the territory bordering on the Ohio. The real merits of the case may be summed up in the pertinent inquiry sent by two of the Indian chieftains to inquire “where the Indians’ land lay, for the French claimed all the land on one side of the river and the English on the other.” Neither of the colonial contestants had the slightest right to the territory.

The first offensive act was committed by the French, who seized three British traders who had advanced into the disputed country. The Indians, aroused by these evident hostilities, began their border ravages, instigated by the French. Orders now arrived from England to the Governor of Virginia, directing him to build two forts near the Ohio to prevent French encroachments and to check Indian depredations. But the order came too late; the French had already built forts and had taken possession of the territory. It was decided to send a messenger to the commander{91} of the French forces on the Ohio and demand his authority for invading the territory of Virginia. For this mission was selected a young man of only twenty-one years, but who was already a Major in the Virginia militia and a man of note in the colony—the man was George Washington. His journey occupied forty-one days and was full of exciting adventure. His consultation with the French authorities left no doubt as to their martial attitude, and Major Washington returned at once to Virginia, where efforts were immediately begun to raise a colonial army. The other colonies took little interest in the affair and Virginia had to depend mainly on herself. As soon, however, as it became apparent that war with France was inevitable, the necessity for co-operation in the colonies was demonstrated, and the English government recommended that a convention be held at Albany for the purpose of forming a league with the Iroquois, and also of devising a plan of general defense against the enemy. The convention met in June, 1754, made a treaty with the Six Nations, and considered the subject of colonial union. A plan was proposed by Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia, Postmaster-General of America, and even then regarded as one of the ablest thinkers in the colonies. This plan was adopted—by odd coincidence—on the 4th of July. It provided a general government for the American colonies,{92} presided over by a governor-general appointed by the King, and conducted by a council chosen by the colonial legislatures. The council was to have the power to raise troops, declare war, make peace, collect money, and pass all measures necessary for public safety. The veto power was relegated to the governor-general, and all laws were to be submitted for approval to the King.

But the plan was rejected, both by the colonial Assemblies and by the King; by the former because it gave too much power to the King, and by the latter because it gave too much power to the colonies. Then the British ministry took the control of the war into its own hands and determined to send out an army strong enough to force the French within their rightful lines. It was early in 1755 that Braddock was dispatched from Ireland with two regiments of infantry to co-operate with the Virginia forces. Fighting began at once, although no actual declaration of war between the two countries was made until a full year and a half later.

The interesting and important events of this war must be merely alluded to; the result was victory for the English, the treaty of peace being signed in Paris, February 10th, 1763. By its terms, Canada, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton were to belong to England; France relinquished all claim to the territory east of the Mississippi,{93} and was confirmed in her title to the country west; Spain ceded to Great Britain Florida and all its title to country east of the Mississippi River. The most important result of the war was felt in the colonies, rather than in England. It educated a nation of soldiers; it taught the Americans how strong they really were, and how little they need depend on Great Britain for defense. The hard feeling engendered by the superiority assumed by the English officers and the enforced subordination of the Americans was the beginning of a breach which was destined never to be healed. A vast amount of debt is always a result of war. The colonies had lost above thirty thousand men, and their debt amounted to nearly four million pounds. Massachusetts alone had been reimbursed by Parliament. England herself was smothered in debts—she had been through four wars in seventy years—and her indebtedness reached the appalling sum of one hundred and forty million pounds. The scheme of colonial taxation to provide a certain and a regular revenue began to be agitated. But the colonies already had a heavy burden of taxation. They were in no mood to receive patiently any further encroachments on their civil rights. Many of the old laws of restriction on commerce—the duties on sugar and molasses, for example—had long been openly evaded. Until the accession of George{94} III the authorities made no resistance to this opposition, but in 1761, when the third George came to the throne—that “very obstinate young man,” as Charles Townshend described him—determined to enforce the law, and “writs of assistance”—that is, search warrants—were issued, by which custom-house officers were empowered to search for goods which had avoided the payment of duty. The people of Boston resented these measures vigorously, and in spite of official vigilance smuggling increased, while the colonial trade with the West Indies was well-nigh destroyed.

In 1764 the sugar duties were reduced, but new duties were imposed on articles hitherto imported free. At the same time Lord Grenville proposed the stamp tax. All pamphlets, newspapers, almanacs, all bonds, leases, notes, insurance policies—in a word, all papers used for legal purposes—in order to be valid, were to be drawn up on stamped paper, purchasable only from King’s officers appointed for the purpose. The plan met with the entire approval of the British Parliament, but its enactment was deferred until the next year, in order that the colonies might have an opportunity to express their feelings on the subject.

This deference to the wishes of the Americans was a mere blind, however. The preamble of the bill openly avowed the intention of raising{95} revenue from “His Majesty’s dominion in America;” the act also gave increased power to the admiralty courts, and provided more stringent means for enforcing the payment of duties. The colonies received the news of these proposed enactments with indignation. The right of Parliament to impose duties and taxes on an unrepresented people was denied. In Boston, always the seat of democratic sentiment, the protest was made in no uncertain tone. New York also expressed her feelings strongly. Even Virginia was loud in her disapproval. Nevertheless, the bill passed the House of Commons five to one; in the Lords, it met with no opposition whatever.

The next day Benjamin Franklin, then in London, wrote to his friend, Charles Thompson: “The sun of liberty is set; you must light the candles of industry and economy.” “The torches we shall light,” was the reply, “shall be of quite another kind.”

Petitions and memorials were addressed to Parliament, the mild and conciliatory tones of which but faintly reflected the ferment and excitement in the colonies. An association sprang suddenly into existence under the name of “Sons of Liberty,” whose special object seemed to be the intimidation of the stamp officers. In all the colonies the officers were compelled or persuaded to resign, and the stamps that arrived were either left unpacked or were seized and burned. Resolutions{96} were passed to import no more goods from England until the Stamp Act was repealed.

A change in the British ministry now took place, and, in spite of opposition, the bill was repealed. This was done on the ground of expediency only, and it was soon made evident that little had been gained to the colonies. The Stamp Act was gone, but the Declaratory Act, the Sugar Act, the Mutiny Act—requiring the colonists to provide quarters for English troops—remained. The project of taxing the American colonies was by no means relinquished. Duties were imposed on paper, glass, painters’ colors, and tea. A large number of British officers were stationed in Boston to enforce the payment of these duties. Riots followed, and throughout the colonies the greatest indignation and excitement prevailed. The British{97}

government tried vainly to induce the colonists to buy their merchandise, but, failing, made one last effort by effecting an arrangement with the East India Company, by which a quantity of tea was shipped to America, to be sold at a price less than had been charged before the duties were imposed. Cargoes were sent to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston, S. C. The inhabitants of New York and Philadelphia sent them back to England; in Charleston the tea was stored in cellars, where it finally perished; in Boston men disguised as Indians boarded the ships and threw the tea overboard.

The consequence of this last rash action was the passing of the Port Bill, whereby the port of Boston was declared closed, and the charter of Massachusetts altered materially to abridge the liberties of the people. General Gage was sent with troops to occupy Boston, which was already fully garrisoned with English soldiers.

In 1774 delegates from eleven colonies met at Philadelphia and formed themselves into a Congress. A declaration of rights was agreed upon, and a repeal of the obnoxious measures resolved to be necessary to the restoration of harmony between Great Britain and America. An address was prepared and forwarded to the King and the people of Great Britain. Notwithstanding these open threats of war, the coercive measures continued. The colonies were making preparation{98}

for defense, and an outbreak was imminent at any time. The occasion soon arrived. A quantity of military stores were housed at Concord, eighteen miles from Boston, and General Gage sent eight hundred British troops to destroy them. At Lexington they met with the first protest, in the form of seventy armed men, who were ordered to disperse. The order not being obeyed, the British fired, killing eight of the colonists and dispersing the rest. At Concord another stand was made, but the troops succeeded in performing their commission. All the country now sprang to arms. A small army appeared in the environs of Boston, further increased by troops from Connecticut. The forts, arsenals, and magazines throughout the colonies{99} were seized by the Americans; Crown Point and Ticonderoga were taken by Ethan Allen, with about two hundred and fifty raw New Hampshire men, reinforced by Benedict Arnold and a small body of Connecticut militia. The battle of Bunker’s Hill followed.

The second Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia May 10th, 1775, voted to raise and equip an army of twenty thousand men, and named George Washington as Commander-in-Chief. On the 2d of July General Washington arrived at Cambridge, and took command of the American forces. Two expeditions against the British in Canada were organized. One under General Montgomery captured Montreal, took a large number of prisoners, and secured considerable property. The other under Benedict Arnold marched through Maine and joined Montgomery before Quebec. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut each armed two vessels to operate against the enemy. Congress also resolved to equip an armament of thirteen vessels. Three ships from London, Glasgow, and Liverpool were captured, and their cargoes of military stores for the British were confiscated.

In the autumn General Gage sailed for England, and the command of the British army devolved upon General Howe. Parliament now declared the colonies out of royal protection,{100} and an army of seventeen thousand mercenaries were employed to aid in their subjection. On the 7th of June, 1776, a motion was made in Congress for declaring the colonies free and independent States. The motion was discussed, and on the fourth of July approved, by a nearly unanimous vote.

The struggle had now begun in earnest. Since his arrival at Cambridge General Washington had been engaged in organizing an army out of his raw recruits, and in efforts to provide them with ammunition and suitable clothing. The regular force of Americans in February was about fourteen thousand men; in addition to these about six thousand of the Massachusetts militia were at the disposal of the Commander-in-Chief. With these troops he succeeded in forcing the British to evacuate Boston. This victory was followed by defeat in Canada, the complete British possession of New York, and of the States of New Jersey and Rhode Island. In the spring of 1777 a ship arrived from France with upwards of eleven thousand stand of arms and one thousand barrels of gunpowder. The army was fully provided with arms and ammunition, and more confidence was felt in the chances for success. As the Continental army gradually regained possession of New Jersey after Washington’s victory of Trenton, the depleted ranks began to fill up, and the fortunes of{101} the United States never again sank to such a low ebb as they had after the British invasion of New York.

About this time several French officers of distinction entered the service of the United States, among them the Marquis de Lafayette, the Baron St. Ovary, and Count Pulaski, the latter a noble Pole. They were all of the greatest service to the Americans. The most important addition to our ranks was that of the Baron Steuben, who had been aide-de-camp to Frederick the Great, and had served through the Seven Years’ War. After leaving the Prussian army he had been Grand Marshal of the Court of the Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen. “The object of my greatest ambition,” he wrote Washington, “is to deserve the title of a citizen of the United States by fighting for the cause of your liberty.” He added that after serving under the King of Prussia, the only man he cared to fight under now was General Washington. The Baron was made Inspector-General of the army, and it was due to him largely that the raw forces were brought into the discipline necessary to insure final victory. Under him the army soon began to operate like a great machine.

The American cause advanced steadily. The successive campaigns of 1777-’78-’79-’80, and ’81 must be epitomized. After the British were{102} driven out of New Jersey they approached Philadelphia by Chesapeake Bay. In August Sir William Howe marched from the head of Elk River in Maryland toward the capital. The armies met on the 11nth of September on the Brandywine River, and the Americans were defeated. This gave Philadelphia to the British. Another indecisive engagement occurred at Germantown shortly afterward. The campaign in Pennsylvania now ended and Washington retired for winter quarters in Valley Forge. Meanwhile events of importance were taking place in the North. General Burgoyne with seven thousand British and German troops were defeated at Fort Schuyler, at Bennington, and on the plains of Saratoga. Burgoyne’s army surrendered with nearly six thousand men and much military property, and again Ticonderoga and the North were in the hands of the Americans. This was really the turning point of the war.

France, which had for over a year kept up a wavering policy, now entered into a treaty of alliance with the United States, in which it was agreed that if war should break out between France and England during the existence of the war in America, it should be made a common cause, and that neither of the contracting parties should conclude peace with England without obtaining formal consent of the other. They{103} further agreed not to lay down their arms until the independence of the United States should be assured by treaty.

On the alliance of America with France it was resolved in England to evacuate Philadelphia and concentrate the royal forces in the harbor of New York. The only other important advance made by the enemy was on the city of Savannah, which was captured, with the shipping in the river and much ammunition and stores. The campaign of 1779 was attended with no important results. The town of Charleston, S. C., was taken by the British, but not held for any length of time. A battle was fought at Savannah in an effort to dislodge the British troops at that place, which was so disastrous to the Americans that the militia, discouraged, retired to their homes, and the French fleet left the country. No sooner did Sir Henry Clinton receive certain information of the departure of the French allies than he sent a large expedition against South Carolina. In April, 1780, Charleston was surrounded, and a month later Fort Moultrie surrendered, thus completing the capture of the city. This year also occurred Benedict Arnold’s treachery and the execution of the gallant André.

The military movements of the year 1781 were principally confined to the South. The British were defeated twice in South Carolina,{104} which closed the war in that State. In Virgina, at Yorktown, the British army under General Cornwallis surrendered, which practically decided the result of the Revolutionary War. Commissioners for negotiating peace were now appointed by both nations, and on the 30th of November, 1782, they agreed on provisional articles, which were to be inserted in a future treaty of peace, to be concluded finally when peace was established between France and England. On the 11th of April, 1783, Congress issued a proclamation, declaring a cessation of arms on land and sea. The definite treaty of peace was signed in Paris on the 3d of September. On the 25th of November the British troops left the city of New York, and on the same day the Americans took possession.{105}

CHAPTER III.

THE STORY OF THE NATION.

FOLLOWING the exultation of victory came a period of uncertainty and apprehension. Financially the country was in a state of utter collapse. The result of the war was a foreign debt of eight millions, and a domestic debt of thirty millions of dollars. The army was unpaid and mutinous; only the tact and energy of Washington prevented an outbreak. The Articles of Confederation, ratified March 1st, 1781, were insufficient to the emergencies which arose on every hand. Congress could obtain no revenue except by requisition from the States; it had no power to lay a tax or to enforce payment from the States. It had no common executive, and was really less a governmental power than a consulting body. A condition bordering on anarchy reigned throughout the States. The legislatures of States having seaports taxed the people of other States for trading with foreign ports through them. Some even taxed imports from sister States. All the States neglected the requisitions of Congress, and New Jersey actually refused payment altogether. It was becoming alarmingly evident that the central government must be strengthened, and new methods of administration{106} adopted, or the confederacy would go to pieces.

All the States except Rhode Island appointed delegates to a general Convention to be held in Philadelphia in May, 1787, for the purpose of “devising such further provisions as may be necessary to render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Union.” The members were the wisest and most honorable men in America. The venerable Franklin, now eighty-one years of age, George Washington, a long list of Revolutionary heroes, and eight signers of the Declaration of Independence were among the distinguished delegates. The Convention was occupied for nearly four months. The proceedings were secret; the journal being intrusted to the care of Washington, who deposited it in the State Department. This journal was afterward printed. Notes of several members were published in 1840, and from these we have nearly a complete view of the process by which the Constitution was formed.

The antagonisms of the States were many and bitter. Chief among them was the slavery question. So hot discussions on this point became that for a fortnight the Convention was on the verge of dissolution, and even Washington despaired of a favorable issue to the proceedings, and almost repented of having had{107} anything to do with the Convention. At this time Franklin made his characteristic speech on the wide diversity of opinion, in which he said that when a broad table is to be made, and the edges of the planks do not fit, the artisan takes a little from both and makes a good joint. In like manner here, both sides must part with some of their demands in order to join in an accommodating position. With the agreement to compromise, the work went more rapidly, and on the 12th of September the completed Constitution was ordered printed. The signing, and the ratification by States of the Constitution followed.

The first Congress assembled in New York on the 4th of March, 1789. Delegates arrived from all the States excepting Rhode Island and North Carolina. On opening the votes of the electors, it was ascertained that George Washington was elected President of the United States, and John Adams, having the next highest number of votes, was declared Vice-President. On the 23d of April the President-elect arrived in New York, and on the 30th was inaugurated. After a laborious session Congress adjourned to meet on the first Monday in January.

The national government was received with powerful opposition by a considerable proportion of voters, and two political parties were thus formed at the very outset. The friends of the{108} Constitution were called Federalists, and the opposing party were styled anti-Federalists. In November of this year North Carolina adopted the Constitution, and was admitted as a State, and Rhode Island followed next year. In 1790 the location of the Capital was decided upon, and its removal to the Potomac designated to take place in the year 1800; in the meantime, the seat of government was to be established at Philadelphia. A census was taken, which showed the population of the United States to be 3,929,326, of which 695,655 were slaves. In 1791 the opposition to the Federal party grew stronger, when the State debts were assumed by Congress, and Hamilton broached the scheme of a National bank. Jefferson, who had been first Secretary of the State, headed the opposing party, who adopted the name of Republicans, and denounced the Hamilton party as Monarchists, and declared against the tendency to centralization of power. The Federal party continued in the majority, however, and Washington and Adams were re-elected in 1792. In the elections of 1800 the Republicans were victorious; Jefferson became President and Aaron Burr Vice-President. The two men received an equal number of votes, and Congress had to decide between them. For many years the “State Rights” Republican-Democratic party continued in power.{109}

The most important event of the early part of the nineteenth century was the purchase of Louisiana from the French. This enormous territory had been lost to England after the French and Indian war; it embraced the whole Mississippi Valley, and extended indefinitely westward. In 1762 it was transferred to Spain, although open possession was not given until 1769. In 1763 Great Britain had obtained, by treaty, that portion lying east of the Mississippi. In 1783, of course, this came into possession of the United States. All the territory west, and on the east from the 31st parallel to the Gulf, remained in the hands of Spain. The importance of having the free use of the river as a channel of transportation to the sea was early felt. This necessity was intensified as settlements increased and the Spanish authorities began to manifest a hostile policy. In 1800 Spain gave back to France the province of Louisiana. It was some time before the transaction became known, but the moment it was made public Jefferson saw that our troubles with France were not an end. The day she took possession the old friendship, long strained, would come to an end, and war seemed near, for in 1802 came the news that an expedition was preparing to cross to Louisiana. Meanwhile the navigation of the river was closed to American citizens; all trade was forbidden them, and the right of{110} deposit at New Orleans was taken away. Protected by this right, traders of Kentucky and Ohio had been accustomed to float tobacco, flour, etc., down the river and store them in warehouses to await the arrival of sloops or scows to carry them to their ports. By the treaty of 1795 some convenient place must always be open for these goods, and when New Orleans was closed there was no other place. Jefferson’s plan was to buy so much territory on the east hank of the river as would settle forever the question of the use of its mouth. Although vigorously opposed by the Federalists in Congress, who wished to declare war against Spain, Jefferson’s proposal was acted upon, and James Monroe was sent over to act with the ministers to France and Spain in the matter of the purchase. Talleyrand hindered the matter as much as possible, and Livingston finally was obliged to break over the bonds of diplomatic etiquette and address himself directly to the First Consul. Napoleon agreed to sell, not part but all; the first price asked was one hundred and twenty-five million francs, and the final price agreed upon was eighty millions. Jefferson, although only authorized to spend two million dollars, accepted the treaty, summoned Congress, and urged it to perfect the purchase. Fifteen million dollars seemed an enormous sum for the people to assume to pay, and the old Federalists fought{111} the measure hotly, but in the end the treaty was ratified by Congress. On November 10th the act creating the eleven million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of stock called for by the first Convention was passed, and in December, 1803, the United States took possession of Louisiana.

The immense territory thus acquired was an unexplored and unknown region to the Americans of that day. Only such scraps of information as came from hunters and trappers, and the wild tales of the Indians had reached the officials. And such tales! There were Indians of gigantic stature; a mountain of salt one hundred and eighty miles in length, all brilliant white in the sun, not a tree on it, and saline streams flowing from its base. There were prairies too rich for anything but grass, soil so fertile that things grew for the planting. In 1804 a party of explorers under Lewis and Clark was sent out by the government; they followed the Missouri to its source, crossed the mountains to the Pacific, and traversed all that region now known as Oregon.

The commerce of America now began to increase with remarkable rapidity, and complications arising with other countries obliged the United States to protect her commerce by engaging in two wars, one with Tripoli and one with England. France and England were engaged{112} in that mighty struggle which followed the events of the French Revolution. Seriously in need of men and unable to buy them from the German Duchies as she had done in her war with the colonies, England began that system of impressment of seamen which finally became so intolerable that war was necessary. The evil was one of long standing. As far back as 1796 application was made in London for the release of two hundred and seventy seamen thus seized within a year. The people of the United States were roused to a state of indignation. Measures for fitting out a suitable naval armament were taken, and a policy of aggression decided upon.

The war with Britain, however, was preceded by a three years’ war with the piratical power of Tripoli, which with the other Barbary States of North Africa, had for many years made the Mediterranean unsafe for commerce. The weaker mercantile nations of Europe, after vainly endeavoring to suppress these outrages, had consented to pay an annual tribute for the security of their vessels. The United States did the same for a time, but having grown weary of this course declared war against Tripoli. The contest ended in 1804, and resulted in the partial suppression of the piracies. It needed a second struggle in 1815 to induce Algiers and Tunis to give up all claims to tribute from the United{113}

States, and this was accomplished under the same talented commander who brought the first war to a successful close—the gallant Commodore Decatur.

The history of the second war with Great Britain begins, as we have seen, as far back as 1796. The aggressive acts of that power were of a nature that would not be tolerated for a single month did they occur in the present day. An official report made in 1812 by the Secretary of State declared that five hundred and twenty-eight American merchantmen had been taken by England prior to 1807, and three hundred and eighty-nine after that period. The value of those vessels and cargoes, estimated at the lowest figures, would amount to nearly thirty million dollars. An abundant warrant for war, surely; yet the declaration was carried in Congress by an astonishingly small majority. The Federal party, opposed to all the Jeffersonian measures, fought with especial bitterness—and with especial justification—the embargo which the executive had declared and which had really caused severe distress to the industrial classes. The depression continued throughout the war, and the suffering experienced gave strong support to the measures of the so-called “Peace Party,” who threw every obstruction in the way of its successful termination. Altogether it was a war for which no adequate provision was made. The{114} navy of the United States was in no condition to cope with that of England; the regular army numbered less than seven thousand men, and the other requisites of war were as poorly provided for. The time, however, was most opportune. England was exhausted with her struggle with France, which even then was continuing, and required most of her attention. Yet so miserably was the war managed that the first year was a record of disaster to the United States. Our naval operations were successful from the start, and the striking series of victories at sea filled England with astonishment and dismay. These successes were followed by similar ones on the lakes, where two of the most notable battles of the war were won. In 1814 the British took possession of Washington, burned the Capitol, the President’s house, the public offices, the navy yard and arsenal, and the bridge over the Potomac. They were repulsed by the Americans a few days later and forced to leave the Chesapeake. The British fleet then sailed south, and in December appeared before New Orleans. The gallant defense made by Jackson lasted nearly a month and resulted in victory for the United States. Before the first gun was fired the treaty of peace had been signed, but word did not reach the combatants in the South until February.

The treaty settled certain questions of boundary,{115} of fisheries, and provided the abolishment of naval forces on the lakes. On the subject of impressment it was silent, as it could very well have been, since America had amply proved her ability to defend her commerce and her citizens in any future difficulty.

The best result of the war was the rapid increase of American manufactories, caused by the impossibility, during the blockade, of obtaining goods from abroad. After the blockade was raised many of these manufactories were ruined, in consequence of the sudden influx of foreign goods, but the impetus given had been a healthy one, and home industries had received a start, at least. Agricultural products greatly increased in value, land and labor rose in proportion, and the shipping interests of the country grew more prosperous than ever. During this period there was evinced a growing tendency to the division of the country into a Northern and a Southern section. In the one, free labor and advancing commercial and manufacturing interests created one set of conditions, while in the South, slave labor and developing agricultural wealth induced quite another. With the invention of the cotton-gin, in 1791, cotton quickly rose to a prominent position among American industries. Slave labor, which had been growing undesirable, now became of high value, and the slaves in the country increased from 657,047 in 1790 to—in{116} round numbers—1,600,000 in 1820. By this time slavery had almost vanished from the North, and the industrial interests of the country were becoming so widely different that the character of the people could not avoid suffering proportionate changes. In the North industry was commended above all things, and the worker was the peer of any man—theoretically speaking. In the South labor was looked down upon, and the planter gave himself up to social pleasures, even leaving the overseeing of his estate in the hands of an agent. While the tendency in the North was the breaking down of all class distinction, the South was becoming more and more of an aristocracy. This diversity of conditions was destined to increase with time, until its final outcome was most inevitably war for the preservation of those principles of freedom and democracy, on which the Union was founded, and on which its existence depends.

During this period, also, the West was filling up with remarkable rapidity. State after State was admitted, until, by 1820, the original thirteen were increased to twenty-four. All the States east of the Mississippi were admitted by this time, and west of the river were Missouri and Louisiana. It was a very rude population that filled the frontier. Refugees from all the Eastern States fled to escape justice, and finally formed the majority of the inhabitants. For{117} many years villainy reigned supreme, but the invading march of civilization gradually introduced a better element, and the West offered a less attractive harbor to the unregenerate.

Allusion must be made to the invasion of Florida by General Jackson in 1818. From 1812 difficulties had existed with the Seminole Indians, while many fugitive slaves fled to the northern part of the State and amalgamated with the savages. These negroes settled on the Appalachicola River, and, furnished with arms by the British, defied the American authorities. Their stronghold was destroyed by General Clinch in 1816, but annoyance from the Seminoles continued. In 1818 General Jackson invaded Florida, destroyed the Indian towns, and took possession of the town of Pensacola and the Spanish fort of St. Mark’s. The controversy thus provoked with Spain resulted in the cession of the whole of Florida to the United States, February 22d, 1819.

The political state of the country from 1816 to 1820, during Monroe’s administration, was peculiar in that only one political party existed—a condition of affairs never witnessed before or since. This was known as “the era of good feeling.” Industrially, however, it was an era of great depression. The prosperity which followed the war of 1812 had vanished, and the natural revulsion from abnormally high prices{118} had come. The banks suspended specie payments and gold and silver disappeared. The Bank of the United States was in a demoralized condition, and ruin and bankruptcy prevailed everywhere. From this distress it took several years for the United States to recover. A notable feature of the time was the consideration in Congress of the problem of internal improvements. Large appropriations were made for a canal route across Florida, for a national road from Cumberland, Maryland, to Ohio, etc. The greatest enterprise was the Erie Canal, built by the State of New York at a cost of ten millions of dollars. Among other events worthy of mention was the founding of the Anti-Slavery Association in 1815, the formation of the first savings bank in Philadelphia, the founding of colleges and universities in almost every State in the Union, and the crossing of the first ocean steamship.

The history of this period must not be closed without allusion to the famous “Monroe Doctrine.” America had long held itself aloof from interference in European affairs, but until now she had never asserted her determination not to be interfered with. In Monroe’s message of 1823, occurs the passage which, although it never received official sanction from Congress, immediately became a fixed and unalterable part of our national policy: that any{119} attempt to extend foreign systems of government to any part of this hemisphere is declared dangerous to our peace and safety, and shall be taken as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.

In 1819 occurred the exciting controversy known as the “Missouri Compromise,” which settled one phase of the slavery question, and paved the way for its final solution. When Missouri applied for admission as a State, the House of Representatives voted to make that admission conditional on the prohibition of the further introduction of slaves, and the emancipation of all slave children born after the admission, as soon as they reached the age of twenty-five. The Senate, however, rejected this condition, and Congress adjourned without coming to any final decision. All during the next session the question was fought, until in the night between the 2d and 3d of March, 1820, the State was admitted on a compromise. Slavery was permitted in its territory, but forever interdicted in the territory, except Missouri, lying north of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes north latitude. If the latter had affected Missouri alone it would have been comparatively insignificant, but there were two great principles involved which bore upon the welfare of the entire nation. These were the questions of slavery and of State sovereignty as opposed{120} to United States supremacy. The result of the Compromise was that the country was divided upon a fixed geographical basis into free and slave sections. Each of the two groups consolidated more and more, and the antagonism between the North and South inevitably increased.

In 1835 an event took place which was destined ultimately to be of great interest to the United States. This was the revolution in Texas, then a province of Central America. A Declaration of Independence was made on the 2d of March, 1836; on March 6th the famous massacre of the Alamo occurred, and two weeks later the battle of San Jacinto, in which the Mexican forces were beaten, and the President, Santa Anna, taken prisoner. As a condition to his release the Mexican troops left the country, and hostilities ceased. The independence of Texas was soon acknowledged by the United States and Europe, and in 1845, at its own request, the new republic became a State of the American Union. Mexico, which had never acknowledged the independence of Texas, resented the action of the United States, and the following year collisions took place between the two countries on the Rio Grande. Two very deadly conflicts, one at Palo Alto and the other at Resaca de la Palma, could only result in a declaration of war on the part of our government. The army, under General{121} Taylor, proceeded at once to Palo Alto, where the Mexicans were defeated on the 8th of May. In September Taylor took Monterey. Another army under General Kearney had succeeded in occupying New Mexico, and after establishing a civil government, marched on to California to the assistance of Commodore Stockton and Captain Fremont. The war ended with victory for the Americans in September of the next year. It had been an unbroken series of successes for the United States. The treaty of peace was signed on the 2d of February, 1848; under its provisions Upper California and New Mexico were surrendered by Mexico, which in turn was granted all its conquered territory, with fifteen million dollars.

The same year that witnessed our accession of California proved the existence of gold in great abundance throughout a vast region of country, and in a few months’ time thousands of treasure seekers were already at work washing fortunes out of the sands. The history of the “Gold Rush” to California in the autumn of 1848 and all during the next few years is one of unique and most absorbing interest. The scenes to which it gave rise are unparalleled in the story of any other country, unless we except Australia. A short period served to exhaust the “placer” minings of California and more expensive methods had to be resorted to. The hydraulic{122} process was invented in 1852; quartz mining also came into vogue. Rich silver deposits were discovered in Colorado and Nevada, and although the era of individual fortune hunting was past, an immense amount of wealth still remained in the rocks of the new country, and emigration proceeded with unexampled energy. Not only was the Pacific Slope found rich in gold, but in forests, and above all in agricultural facilities. With all these inducements on the coast, came the discovery of the wealth in the intervening prairie lands, and the great West began to fill up, until in forty-three years it has become the home of the boldest and most promising population within the United States’ limits. State after State has been admitted, railroads and telegraphs have been built across the continent, and an immense and flourishing domain has been added to the nation.

The next phase of American history which, in a recital of only the important events of national growth, must claim attention, is the development of Abolitionism. The slavery question was not buried after the passage of the Missouri Compromise Bill, as its supporters had promised and believed. The doctrine of abolition was first openly advocated by William Lloyd Garrison in his newspaper, The Liberator, issued January 1st, 1831. Anti-Slavery societies were formed soon afterward, but they met with such violent{123} opposition in the North that they were forced to cease their meetings. The political strength of the idea was not manifested until 1844, when the candidate of the “Liberty” party made Polk President of the United States. It was, however, the close of the Mexican War and the subsequent large addition of property that brought the question into prominence before Congress. In the discussion of the treaty of Mexico, David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, proposed to add to the appropriation bill the clause that slavery should be prohibited in any territory which might be acquired as a consequence of the war. Although the “Wilmot Proviso” was rejected, it was received with warmest approbation throughout the North.

The Anti-Slavery faction, organized in 1848, under the name of “the Free Soil Party,” and in the ensuing election returned its candidate, Martin Van Buren, to the Presidency, sent Salmon P. Chase and Charles Sumner to the Senate, and a large number of its friends to the House of Representatives. The rapid settlement of the West added to the complication. California and Oregon in their territorial organization excluded slavery, and the former applied for admission as a State on an Anti-Slavery basis. A fierce debate followed in Congress, the Southern representatives insisting on the organization of California, Oregon, Utah, and New{124} Mexico without slavery restrictions. The Free Soil party demanded, not only the admission of California, but the organization of the other territories with slavery absolutely prohibited. The dispute ended in a compromise, proposed by Henry Clay, in which California was admitted as a free State, no restriction enforced in Utah or New Mexico, and slavery prohibited in the District of Columbia, and provisions made for the return of fugitive slaves from all Northern States. The compromise was so agreeable to the majority of the people that for a time the Anti-Slavery agitation was greatly decreased.

In 1855 the Free Soil party was absorbed into the Republican party, destined to attain such power in later days. It was the clause relating to fugitive slaves which renewed the abolition sentiment in the North. For years previous to this time escaped slaves had found plenty of friends among the Northerners to help them to Canada, and in time the organization for aid and secretion of fugitive blacks became more complete, and very few slaves who succeeded in crossing the border line were ever recovered by their masters. Massachusetts even passed a law to secure fugitive slaves trial by jury, and Pennsylvania passed a law against kidnapping. A decision was finally made in the Supreme Court which gave to the owners of a slave the right to recapture him without process of law,{125} but this availed little against the growing sentiment against all slavery. In 1850 a Fugitive Slave law was passed which was so unjust in its measures that it left little hindrance to the kidnapping of free negroes to be held as slaves in the South. This law aroused the greatest indignation, and backed up the Abolitionists with a crowd of ardent sympathizers, where previously they had been regarded as wild radicals. In December, 1853, the Territory of Nebraska was proposed for organization. An amendment to the bill was offered which should abrogate the Missouri Compromise and permit the citizens of the Southern States to take and hold their slaves within any of the new Territories or States. The bill was reported back from the committee, modified to propose the formation of two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. At the end of a contest lasting four months, the bill was carried, with the measure which had been in existence for thirty-five years nullified and the whole territory from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains thrown open to slavery. In 1857 the South gained a new victory when the Missouri Compromise was declared unconstitutional in the highest tribunal in the land. The Abolition party was now very greatly strengthened in the North, and before the slavery agitation, all other questions of public policy were subordinate. A re-organization of parties became necessary;{126} the Democrats divided into two sections, and the Free Soilers and a section of the Democrats and the old Whigs fused to form the Republican party.

The first hostilities resulting in bloodshed appeared in Kansas. An organized effort had been made by the anti-slavery societies of the North to secure Kansas by colonizing her with Abolitionists. Missouri made a corresponding effort to secure it to slavery, but rather by violence than colonization. An armed band of two hundred and fifty Missourians marched upon the new town of Lawrence and ordered its settlers to leave the territory. The settlers refused, and their assailants retired; but this battle of words was followed by a series of more serious assaults. An election for a Territorial legislature was ordered in 1855. The slave-holders of Missouri and Arkansas entered the Territory in large bands, took possession of the polls, and, driving the actual settlers away, cast their votes for the Pro-Slavery candidates. This fraudulent operation was ignored by Congress, and the proceedings of the Pro-Slavery legislature were indorsed. But the Free State settlers were too many to be dealt with thus, and in 1859 they held another convention, elected their candidates, and adopted a new Constitution, in which slavery was prohibited.

These violent methods of legislation were carried{127} to Congress, where, in 1856, Charles Sumner was brutally assaulted by Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, after the delivery of the speech on “The Crime Against Kansas” by the former. This occurrence added to the bitterness of party spirit, and had its share in arousing the fanatical outbreak of John Brown at Harper’s Ferry. On the approach of the elections of 1860 the hot-headed leaders of Southern politics, rather than accept the moderate views of the Northern section of their party, chose to divide their ranks, thus insuring the election of a Northern candidate. When the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, whose record on the question was embraced in one sentence of a recent speech, “I believe this government cannot permanently endure half slave and half free,” the issue was for the first time clearly defined in a political contest. For ten years the threat of secession had been openly made in Congress, whenever any Pro-Slavery measure was strongly opposed, but now it became more than a threat; it was a menace. Lincoln must have been elected, even if the issue had been less vital, and his successful candidacy was rather desired than dreaded in the South. Secession had been determined upon in South Carolina, and the “fire-eaters” of the South were delighted at what they deemed a direct provocation.

In December, 1860, South Carolina passed an{128} ordinance of secession, and set up an independent government. Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana followed; the Northern range of slave States waited until war had actually broken out.

The Southern element still had possession of Congress, and there was no fear of interference until after Lincoln’s inauguration; the seizure of the United States forts and arsenals in the seceding States was therefore accomplished without opposition.

It was not until April that any decisive action was taken by the new administration. Even the fact that a convention had been held at Montgomery, Alabama, a Constitution adopted, and a President elected of the Confederated Southern States had received no active opposition; but when Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor was beleaguered by a Confederate force, preparations were made to relieve it at once, thus deciding the question of war. Early in April a fleet sailed southward and took possession of the fort. As soon as it became known in Charleston, hostilities were determined upon unless Major Anderson, the Federal commander, at once evacuated the fort. He refused, and on the 12th day of April, 1861, at the hour of five A.M., the first gun was fired which announced the beginning of the greatest civil war in history.

detailed account, but shall merely pass in rapid review over the most important events, giving a general outline of the basis on which it was fought. The reduction of Fort Sumter was followed by a call from President Lincoln for seventy-five thousand volunteers, which were quickly furnished. Yet the valuable navy yard at Norfolk fell into the hands of the Confederates, and the capture of Washington was only averted by a hasty movement of the troops. The first situation was a little complex; there was in effect a double war—one in Virginia and the country north of it, the other in the States bordering the Mississippi River on the east. There were minor fields of campaigning west of the river, and along the coast where the blockade proved useful in isolating the South from foreign countries.

The seceding States having chosen Jefferson Davis as President, made Richmond, Virginia, their capital, and the two capitals—Richmond and Washington—were the points between which the war in Virginia raged during the entire four years, and the fury with which these cities were alternately assailed and defended went far toward exhausting the warring sections of the country. In the West and along the Mississippi the line of battle went southward, while a corresponding movement pushed toward the north from the enemy’s country along the river until{130} the two armies met and thus gave the Mississippi to the United States again. After this achievement the two fields of war began to combine in one, and the Western army, marching into the Atlantic States, pushed on to aid Grant in the final struggle.

The war began in earnest, when General McDowell with twenty-eight thousand men, advanced against General Beauregard, who was entrenched behind the small stream of Bull Run, south of Washington. Both armies were composed of undisciplined men. The fighting was severe on both sides, and it was only when Beauregard was reinforced by Johnston’s forces that the tide of war turned in favor of the Southern army. The National troops became demoralized, and the bulk of them fled from the field in disorder. This defeat greatly startled and alarmed the North. It was seen that a gigantic struggle with a most potent and determined foe was at hand, and preparations were made to meet it. State militia regiments were mustered into the National army “for three years or the war,” and General George B. McClellan was put in command. The remainder of 1861 was spent in drilling and equipment of troops, etc., with the exception of a battle at Ball’s Bluff, in which the Confederates were again victorious.

In the spring of 1862, General McClellan began{131} active work. His plans were most elaborately drawn and carefully matured. It was the campaign of an engineer, rather than of a fighting soldier. He moved toward Richmond with the bulk of his army by way of the James River Peninsula, while General McDowell advanced from Fredericksburg, and Banks and Fremont moved down the Shenandoah Valley. The last two commanders were met and beaten completely by General Thomas J. Jackson, best known as “Stonewall.” McDowell was held back to defend Washington. So McClellan and his army went on alone. He wasted some time in besieging Yorktown; and fought the battles of Williamsburg, May 5th, and Seven Pines May 31st, the latter being within six miles of Richmond. At Seven Pines the Confederate General, J.E. Johnston, was seriously wounded, and Robert E. Lee succeeded him as leader of the Southern hosts.

“Stonewall” Jackson having beaten Banks and Fremont in the Valley, now came down and joined Lee, and McClellan was driven back to Harrison’s Landing on the James River. During this retreat, the battles of Gaines’s Mills, Savage Station, Glendale, and Malvern Hill were fought, from June 25th to July 1st, all desperate and bloody. Malvern Hill was a Titanic conflict, and in it the National army was victorious. But McClellan, instead of following{132} up his advantage, continued his retreat. He was constantly clamoring for reinforcements, and blamed the Government at Washington for his inability to whip the enemy. On August 29th and 30th the National forces under General Pope were vanquished at Bull Run, and soon after General Lee captured Harper’s Ferry, and crossed the Potomac into Maryland. McClellan met him on September 17th at Antietam, and defeated him in a bloody battle. Lee fell back, and McClellan did not pursue him.

The President had long been dissatisfied with the policy pursued by McClellan, who apparently was a victim to over-cautiousness. General Burnside was therefore put in his place, as Commander of the Army of the Potomac. He proved as rash as McClellan had been cautious, and the results of his rashness were disastrous. On December 13th he fought at Fredericksburg a bloody but fruitless battle; and soon thereafter he was superseded in command by General Joseph Hooker. That commander was also incautious, and was commonly known as “Fighting Joe” Hooker, from his supposed brilliancy and courage in battle. He led the army against the Confederates at Chancellors ville, May 1st and 3d, 1863, and was terribly beaten. It was one of the worst defeats sustained by the Union arms in the whole war.{133}

Now the Southern armies, flushed with victory, took the aggressive and invaded the North. They swept across Maryland and entered Pennsylvania, no effective opposition being offered. Hooker and his army started after them, but in the last week of June Hooker was removed from command, and General George Gordon Meade was put in his place. That wise and capable leader hurried the Union army northward, and on July 1st confronted Lee at Gettysburg. There, on July 1st, 2d, and 3d, was fought the greatest battle of the war, and one of the most important in human history. It cannot be described in detail here, but it resulted in the complete discomfiture of the Confederates, who retreated with all possible haste back to Virginia, and never sought to invade the North again. General Meade followed them, but was unable to overtake and capture them. During the remainder of that year Meade made two attempts upon Richmond, but without important results. Thus matters stood in Virginia at the beginning of 1864, when a new factor appeared upon the scene, before dwelling upon which some events elsewhere must be recounted.

Attacks had been made, up to this time, upon the Confederates along the coast by several expeditions. General T. W. Sherman and Commodore Du Pont had occupied Beaufort in November, 1861. Early in 1862 General Burnside{134} had taken Roanoke Island and Newberne. In the West, beyond the Mississippi, there had been much fighting, especially in Arkansas, and the National arms had been generally successful. On the water, also, the National fleets were supreme. At no time had the Confederates a fleet able to hold its own at sea. They had a number of fast cruisers, fitted out in England, which roamed the ocean as freebooters, preying upon American commerce. The most notable of these was the “Alabama,” which was finally destroyed off Cherbourg, France, by the “Kearsarge,” in June, 1864. They had also a number of powerful rams and ironclad gunboats, for coast and harbor defense. Most famous of these was the “Merrimack,” which, in Hampton Roads, destroyed the great frigates “Congress” and “Cumberland,” and bade fair to deal likewise with the whole Union fleet. Opportunely, the little ironclad “Monitor,” just built by John Ericsson, appeared upon the scene, gave battle, and vanquished the monster “Merrimack.” This was one of the epoch-making naval battles of the world. It not only saved the whole Union fleet, and perhaps many Northern seaport cities from destruction. At a single stroke it revolutionized naval architecture and naval warfare. The great wooden frigates were instantly made things of the past; thenceforth the typical war-ship was a heavily armored iron and steel machine, carrying only a{135} few guns in revolving turrets, or in heavy iron casemates.

But the greatest of the operations leading down to 1864 were in the West Central States. At the beginning of 1862 the National commanders set out to regain possession of the Mississippi River. In January General Thomas defeated the Confederates at Mill Spring. In February Commodore Foote reduced Fort Henry, on the Tennessee River. A few days later General U. S. Grant, after most severe fighting, captured Fort Donelson and its garrison of 15,000 Confederate troops. This was the first really great Union victory, and Grant at once became a dominant figure in the drama of civil war. Other operations followed, by which the Confederates were driven out of Kentucky, and largely out of Tennessee. In April General Pope and Commodore Foote captured Island No. 10, with 7,000 Confederates, thus clearing the Mississippi down to Memphis. Early in April a great two days’ battle was fought at Pittsburg Landing, on the Tennessee River, Generals Grant and W. T. Sherman commanding the National army, and A. S. Johnston and G. P. T. Beauregard the Confederates. On the first day the Confederates were successful, but on the second the National army rallied, regained its ground, and drove the foe before it in one of the bloodiest conflicts of the war. General{136} A. S. Johnston was killed—an irreparable loss to the Southern cause.

The Union armies now moved southward into Alabama and Mississippi. Early in 1863 they gathered about Vicksburg, the “Gibraltar of the South,” the only important obstacle to the reopening of the Mississippi. Admiral Porter co-operated with his fleet. A long siege, marked by many desperate engagements, followed, ending with the surrender of Vicksburg, with 27,000 men to General Grant. This occurred on July 3d, at the very time when Meade was putting Lee to rout at Gettysburg. A few days later Port Hudson surrendered to General Banks; Admiral Farragut, in a naval conflict of surpassing splendor, had already captured New Orleans; and thus the entire Mississippi was regained by the National authorities. Later, a great reverse was suffered. General Rosecrans was terribly beaten by the Confederates at Chickamauga, and driven into Chattanooga, where he was besieged. This was on September 19th and 20th. But Grant was now free to turn his attention thither, and he quickly drove the Confederates away from Chattanooga southward into Georgia.

Thus we come to the opening of 1864. General Grant’s brilliant successes in the West led the President to call him to the East, when he was made commander of all the National armies. Sherman was left in the West to command{137} there, under Grant’s direction. These two illustrious commanders matured their plans together, and simultaneously, early in May, moved forward on the greatest campaign of the war. Sherman marched from Chattanooga southward, against the able Confederate General J. E. Johnston. Desperate battles were fought at Kenesaw Mountain and elsewhere, but Sherman was irresistible. In August the war raged about Atlanta, and at the beginning of September that most important city fell into Sherman’s hands. The Confederate President, who hated Johnston, had foolishly removed him from command and put Hood in his place. The latter was a brave and gallant soldier, but was not—as he himself well knew—the equal of Johnston as a commander, and this change did the Confederates much harm. Despairing of checking Sherman, Hood sought to make a diversion by marching northward into Tennessee. He fought the battle of Franklin, where there was some of the most dreadful carnage of the war, and besieged Nashville. Sherman sent General Thomas thither, and he gave Hood battle. The slaughter was terrific, and at the day’s end Hood’s army was all but annihilated. This was on December 15th. Sherman, meantime, cutting loose from his base of supplies, and severing all communications with the North, had set out with 60,000 troops for his famous “March to the Sea.” He made his way{138} almost unopposed across Georgia, from Atlanta to Savannah, capturing the latter city, with vast stores, on December 21st. Thence he made his way northward through the Carolinas to co-operate with Grant in Virginia.

In the meantime Grant had begun his campaign with the awful battles in the Wilderness, May 5th and 6th; at Spottsylvania, May 8th-18th; at North Anna, and at Cold Harbor. The losses on both sides in these engagements were terrific. But the National army was readily reinforced by recruits, while the Confederates had no more supplies to draw upon. Grant therefore determined to press the fighting, and simply exhaust the enemy. A long struggle followed at Petersburg, south of Richmond. Finding himself steadily losing, Lee sought in his desperation to make a favorable diversion by sending his Lieutenant Early northward, up the Shenandoah Valley, into Maryland, and against Washington itself. At first Early was successful, and almost captured Washington. Then Grant sent General Philip H. Sheridan against him, and in two or three battles Early was utterly routed, the final engagement being the famous battle of Cedar Creek, on October 19th.

The year 1865 opened with the National arms everywhere victorious. The war was now concentrated in Southern Virginia. The Confederates abandoned Richmond, and Lee strove to make{139} his way southward, to join J. E. Johnston in North Carolina. Grant and Sheridan headed him off, however, and he was compelled to surrender at Appomattox Court House, on April 9th. The surrender of Johnston to Sherman followed on April 26th. General Grant treated his prisoners with the most marked generosity, bidding them keep their horses, which, he said, they would need for the spring work on their farms. And thus the Titanic conflict was practically ended. The other engagements that should be mentioned were the great battle in Mobile Bay in August, 1864, when Admiral Farragut destroyed the Confederate forts and fleet, and the capture of Fort Fisher by General Terry in January, 1865. Jefferson Davis was captured and held as a prisoner for some time, but was finally released and permitted to enjoy a life of liberty and prosperity in the country he had striven to disrupt. On April 14th, 1865, President Lincoln was murdered by a member of a desperate band of Confederate conspirators, and the nation was plunged into mourning.

Constitutional amendments, forever prohibiting slavery, and extending citizenship to the negroes, were adopted, the States lately in rebellion were “reconstructed,” and the restored and reunited nation resumed the career of prosperity that had been so rudely interrupted.

The events since the close of the war must be{140} only briefly alluded to. Within the space of twenty-seven years many important occurrences have been recorded. The effect of the great struggle was on the whole good. The two great disturbing questions which from the signing of the Constitution until 1861 divided the country, were now settled forever. Slavery was abolished; the most bitter source of sectional dispute. The doctrine of State rights was also laid at rest. Another benefit of the conflict was the national banking system. The finances of the country were placed on a more secure basis than ever before. The period of reconstruction was a painful one, of course, but in the end both sections of the United States found themselves stronger and better than ever before. Andrew Johnson, on becoming President, after the murder of Lincoln, took measures of which Congress disapproved, and a bitter strife began which lasted all during the administration. The President declared at the outset that as a State could not secede, none of the Southern States had been out of the Union at all. This doctrine was ignored by Congress, which held that the seceding States were still out of the Union and could only be re-admitted on such terms as Congress should prescribe. The Civil Rights Bill, which made the negroes citizens of the United States, was passed in 1866, and shortly afterward the fourteenth Amendment to the{141} Constitution was adopted. The breach between the President and Congress grew wider; bill after bill was passed over his veto, and in 1868 the House passed a resolution to impeach the President for “high crimes and misdemeanors” in the conduct of his office. The immediate provocation was the removal of Secretary Stanton, which proceeding was in contravention of the Tenure of Office Act, which provided that no removal from office should be made without consent of the Senate. The impeachment trial continued until May, when the final vote was taken, and it lacked the necessary two-thirds majority to impeach.

In pursuance of the “Military Act,” the South in 1867 was divided into five districts and placed under military governors. This exclusion of the better class of Southern citizens from civil duties placed all power in the hands of an inferior class of Northern men (called in the South “Carpet-baggers”), who had come hither after the war in search of position. The actions of these men did little to restore harmony between the sections. The situation was not improved by the existence of a body of Southern reprobates who called themselves the “Ku Klux Klan,” and rode about in disguise, doing acts of violence against the negroes and all who sympathized with them. This state of affairs was brought to a gradual change by the acceptance{142} of the terms proposed by Congress. In 1868 a pardon was extended to all who had engaged in the war, except those who were indicted for criminal offenses; in 1870 the last of the States accepted the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, and with their admission to Congress the problem of reconstruction was solved and the country resumed its normal condition.

Many other questions have since arisen, but until they too are finally disposed of they can not properly take a place in history. Among these, the labor question, the temperance agitation, woman suffrage, the tariff, civil service reform, railroad and land monopoly, and the Indian troubles are evidence enough that the public mind is not at rest The Indian problem, it is hoped, is nearing solution. It is unquestionable that they have been treated with great injustice and it remains now for the United States to pursue the educating and civilizing policy which it was so late in assuming, but which has proved so satisfactory in its results.

In 1868 General Grant was elected President, in which office he continued eight years. During his administration the Union Pacific Railroad was completed, thus connecting the two oceans. The first successful ocean telegraph was completed in 1866.

The most disastrous event of the period was{143} the Chicago fire, which broke out October 8th, 1871, and destroyed an area of buildings extending over a length of four miles. One hundred thousand people were left homeless, and two hundred people perished. Contributions to the amount of seven million dollars poured in, and almost without delay the process of re-building commenced. In a few years scarcely a trace of the disaster remained, and so rapid was the city’s new growth, that what in 1871 had been a ruined heap of ashes, in 1890 was found to be the second city in the United States.

The second term of Grant’s Presidency was marked with violent political agitation. The “Credit Mobilier” scheme to bribe certain members of Congress in favor of the Pacific Railroad Company was exposed; Secretary Belknap was impeached by Congress for fraud, but was acquitted; other exposures still further shook public confidence.

The elections of 1876 gave rise to great excitement, and much bitter partisanship in consequence of the closeness of the Presidential vote, and the questionable methods of deciding upon the successful candidate.

The returns from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina were disputed, and it finally became necessary to adopt a special method of deciding the contest. A commission of five members of each House of Congress and five associate{144} judges of the Supreme Court decided in favor of the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. The decision gave great offense to the Democrats, and the question is one which is still disputed. In this year was held the Centennial Exhibition. Previous to this time a great financial panic swept the country, and carried ruin far and wide. The grasshopper plague created much suffering and famine through the West.

In 1880 James A. Garfield was elected President, and Chester A. Arthur Vice-President. The Civil Service Reform, begun under Mr. Hayes, was taken up vigorously by Garfield, and on this issue the party split into two factions. Two leaders in the “Stalwart” section, Roscoe Conkling and Thomas C. Platt, resigned their seats in the Senate. The excitement caused by these events induced a lunatic office-seeker, Charles J. Guiteau, to a desperate deed. On the 2d of July, 1881, he shot and mortally wounded the President in the railroad depot at Washington. After months of suffering, the martyred President died, September 19th. The Civil Service Reform agitation survived its defender, however, and the sentiment in favor of his ideas has grown enormously, and promises to become stronger.

In the Presidential election of 1884 the long continuance of Republican rule was broken by{145}

the seating of the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland, who won an enviable record for himself during his administration, both for integrity and wise management. In 1888 he again came up for election, but was defeated by Benjamin Harrison, the Republican nominee.

Thus the Nation has come down to the present day, in which it stands supreme among the powers of the world in freedom and prosperity and all the true elements of greatness. Upon such a basis of accomplished facts, the patriotic seer must cast, if he will, its future horoscope.{146}

CHAPTER IV.

WORLD’S FAIRS.

DURING the past half century a favorite and effective method of displaying and recording the industrial progress of the world has been found in the holding of World’s Fairs, or Universal Exhibitions. Almost every important capital of the world has now held one or more of these interesting displays, each in succession striving to outdo its predecessors in extent and magnificence, until the latest of them truly present in epitome the invention, industry, art, science, and general progress of the entire world. It was fitting that the first of these universal exhibitions should be held in the world’s chief city, London. It was opened in 1851 in a huge building erected in Hyde Park for the purpose, known as the Crystal Palace. This stupendous structure was composed chiefly of iron and glass and had a floor area of more than one million square feet. In size and originality of design it was one of the marvels of the world. The example quickly stimulated similar enterprises in other capitals. Dublin and Paris soon followed, and almost simultaneously with the exhibition in the Irish metropolis{147} a similar exhibition was opened in the capital of the Western Hemisphere.

The American Crystal Palace, which was opened in New York in 1853, was in point of size much inferior to its prototype in London, and altogether insignificant when contrasted with the stupendous exhibitions of later years. For its time, however, it was proportionately equal to any that has ever been held. At that time New York City contained only a little more than half a million inhabitants, or about one-third of its present population. The development of the United States was still less advanced. What was now central Western States were then sparsely settled frontier territories. The Pacific railroads were a dream of the dim future. The Atlantic Cable was a vision. The telegraph itself was a mere rudiment of its present development. The railroad and the steamboat were primitive affairs. Even horse cars had not come into general use. Photography was in its infancy. As for the telephone, the electric light, and a score of other great inventions that are now of universal use, they were not even dreamed of. As the New York Crystal Palace of 1853 was to the Chicago Exhibition of 1893, so was America and its civilization of that time to our country of to-day.

This first universal exhibition held on American soil was situated in what is now known as{148} Bryant Park, in New York City. It is now in the very heart of the city, at Sixth Avenue and Fortieth and Forty-second Streets. In 1853 it was well out of town in the suburbs, and was known as Reservoir Square. At that time it was surrounded by open fields and gardens, with here and there rows of pleasant rural cottages. A few of the streets were paved in that part of the city, but there was only a faint indication of what another generation would see. The little park was four hundred and fifty-five feet square, and almost the entire area was occupied by the Crystal Palace. The central idea embodied in the plan of the structure was that of a Greek cross, whose arms pointed north, south, east, and west. The extreme dimensions of the building, from north to south and from east to west, were 365 feet 5 inches, and the arms were each 149 feet 5 inches wide. The external angles formed by the arms of the cross were filled up with triangular structures, one story in height, thus making the outline of the ground plan an octagon. At each of the angles of the building was an octagonal tower, 76 feet high, and over the central intersection of the cross rose a magnificent dome, 100 feet in diameter and 123 feet high. The external walls of the building were composed almost exclusively of cast-iron and glass. The floors were of wood, and the roof was of wood, covered with tin and{149} supported on wrought-iron framework. The roof was supported by 190 cast-iron columns on the ground floor, each 8 inches in diameter and 21 feet high. They divided the interior into two avenues or naves, each 41 feet 5 inches wide, with aisles, 54 feet wide, on each side. These naves, at their intersection, left an octagonal space 100 feet in diameter. The aisles were covered with galleries, while the naves were open to the roof and were spanned by semicircular arches of cast-iron. The dome was supported by twenty-four columns, each 62 feet high, connected at the top by wrought-iron trusses. On the top of these was a cast-iron bed-plate, with cast-iron shoes for the ribs of the dome, which were thirty-two in number. These ribs were bolted at the top to a horizontal ring of wrought and cast iron, 20 feet in diameter, surmounted by a lantern with thirty-two ornamental windows, decorated with the Arms of the Union and the several States. The whole quantity of iron employed in the construction amounted to 1,800 tons, of which 300 tons were wrought and 1,500 tons cast. The quantity of glass was 15,000 panes, or 55,000 square feet. The quantity of wood used amounted to 750,000 feet board measure. The principal dimensions of the building were as follows: From main floor to gallery floor, 24 feet; from main floor to ridge of nave, 67 feet 4{150} inches; from main floor to summit of dome, 123 feet 6 inches; area of main floor, 157,195 square feet; area of gallery floor, 92,496 square feet; total area of floor space, 249,691 square feet, or about 5¾ acres.

The total amount of space on the floor occupied by different countries for exhibition, exclusive of the naves, was about 152,000 square feet, divided as follows: The United States 54,530; Great Britain, 17,651; Switzerland, 4,428; the German Zollverein, 12,249 Holland and Belgium, 3,645; Austria, 2,187; Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, 4,231; Russia, 729; the West Indies, 1,093; British Colonies, 5,798. The total number of exhibitors was 4,383. Of these 1,778 were from the United States; 677 from England; 116 from Switzerland; 813 from the German Zollverein; 155 from Holland and Belgium; and 100 from Austria. The exhibits were divided in 31 general classes as follows: Class I, Minerals, Mining, and Metallurgy, Geological and Mining Sections and Plans. Class II, Chemical and Pharmaceutical Products and Processes. Class III, Substances Employed as Food. Class IV, Vegetable and Animal Substance Employed in Manufactures. Class V, Machines for Direct Use. Class VI, Machinery and Tools for Manufacturing. Class VII, Civil Engineering, Architectural, and Building Contrivances. Class VIII, Naval{151} Architecture, Military Engineering, Armor and Accoutrements. Class IX, Agricultural, Horticultural, and Dairy Implements. Class X, Philosophical Implements and Products Resulting from their Use. Class XI, Manufactures of Cotton. Class XII, Manufactures of Wool. Class XIII, Manufactures of Silk and Velvet. Class XIV, Manufactures of Flax and Hemp. Class XV, Mixed Fabrics. Class XVI, Leather, Furs, Hair, and their Manufactures. Class XVII, Paper, Stationery, Types, Printing, and Book-binding. Class XVIII, Dyed and Printed Fabrics. Class XIX, Tapestry, Carpets, Floor-cloths, Lace, Embroideries, Trimmings, and Fancy Needlework. Class XX, Wearing Apparel. Class XXI, Cutlery and Edge Tools. Class XXII, Iron, Brass, Pewter, and General Hardware. Class XXIII, Works in Precious Metals and their Imitations. Class XXIV, Glass Manufactures. Class XXV, Porcelain and other Ceramic Manufactures. Class XXVI, Decorated Furniture and Upholstery. Class XXVII, Manufactures in Slate and other Ornamental Stones. Class XXVIII, Manufactures from Animal and Vegetable Substances not Woven or Felted. Class XXIX, Miscellaneous Manufactures, Perfumery, and Toys. Class XXX, Musical Instruments. Class XXXI, Fine Arts.

The plan of the building was designed by{152} Messrs. Carstensen & Gildemeister, and was selected in preference to other plans submitted by Sir Joseph Paxton, the builder of the London Crystal Palace. C. E. Detmold was the superintending architect and engineer, Horatio Allen the consulting engineer, and Edward Hurry the consulting architect. The municipal authorities of New York on January 3d, 1852, granted a lease of Reservoir Square for five years, thus furnishing the site for the building. The New York Legislature on March 11th, 1852, granted a charter to the Association for the Industry of All Nations, and on March 17th the Board of Directors met and organized with Theodore Sedgwick as President, and William Whetten as Secretary. The United States Government gave countenance and aid to the institution by permitting the introduction of foreign goods for exhibition free of duty. Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, secured the aid of the Representatives of the United States at the chief Courts of Europe, and the Ministers of Foreign Powers residing in the United States sympathized warmly with the Association, and commended it favorably to their respective governments. Under such auspices, and with such encouragement the work went forward. The first column was put in place with appropriate ceremonies on October 30th, 1852; the building was open to the public{153} on July 15th, 1853, though still incomplete; and on Friday evening, August 20th, 1853, the full opening was effected.

Perhaps no more interesting view of this notable institution and the chief events connected with it can be given than that which was presented by the principal metropolitan newspapers of the day. Let us first quote from an account of the raising of the first column:

“The erection of the first column of the Crystal Palace took place on Reservoir Square at noon on Saturday. The interest in and importance of the occasion attracted a large concourse of citizens. There must have been at least two thousand persons present.”

Volumes could not tell more. Two thousand persons present on such an occasion, and they called it a “large concourse!” Nevertheless, continued the scribe, “There was a large number of distinguished citizens upon the platform beside the pillar. Among those present we noticed his Excellency Gov. Hunt, his Honor the Mayor, Archbishop Hughes, Felix Forreste, General Tallmadge, Henry Meigs, C. Crolius, ex-Senator J. A. Bunting, Rev. Dr. Peet, Lambert Suydam, Hon. Judge Betts, Senators McMurray and Beekman, and several other invited guests. General Tallmadge and others were present as a deputation from the American{154} Institute. Dodworth’s band was present during the proceedings and played delightfully. When the pillar was raised, by means of a derrick, the Governor directed it to its place, amid the enthusiastic cheering of those present and the firing of cannon, the band, the while, playing a national air.”

The chief address was made by Theodore Sedgwick, the President of the Association, and his remarks are worth repeating here, as expressive of the sentiments that inspired him and his associates in the enterprise:

“Governor Hunt: In the name of the Directors of the Association, I thank you cordially and respectfully for the trouble which you have taken to honor this occasion with your presence. Our thanks are also eminently due to the city government, not only for their attendance here to-day, but more for the sagacious foresight with which they have extended their liberal aid to the enterprise in its infancy. We are also proud to see among our friends the officers of two societies—one from our own, and one from a sister State—which have done so much to raise the aims and promote the interests of American industry, to open the path in which we are now treading. The general objects to which this building will be destined are so familiar to us all that I need not dwell upon{155} them. Our arrangements are so far advanced that we can speak with confidence as to our ultimate success. It is sure to strike the mind of the European producer, that he has substantial objects to attain by sending specimens of his skill here, which no European country can afford. On the other hand, the American manufacturer, who has comparatively little but honor to gain by sending the produce of his skill to Europe, has a clear and distinct inducement to exhibit his goods here. If no unforseen event occurs, we shall have it in our power to make such an exhibition of the costly, artistic, and luxurious products of the Old World as has never yet been seen among us. These considerations will produce their results; and we are equally confident that the industry of our country, with that fearless energy which, perhaps, more than any other one thing is a distinguishing trait in our national character, will eagerly enter into a contest from which, in every respect, nothing but good can flow. I shall say on this head no more. Those whose eyes, like mine, were delighted by the surpassing glories of the London Exhibition—who know the power, opulence, and varied resources of the Old World—who know what those creatures of genius, the French, are trying to effect, may well pause before they make vaunts for the future. Suffice it, we shall do everything that{156} industry and fidelity can accomplish. Nor shall I enlarge on the benefits of an exhibition of this kind. There is no doubt whatever that there yet exists no similar means for extending the circle of knowledge and taste—above all, for enlarging and increasing that mutual good-will and confidence which is the surest bulwark of national independence, and the only guaranty of international peace.

“Sir, at this moment, everything from the pen of that great statesman, whose loss we lament, will be received with interest. I shall, therefore, trespass on you by reading the following letter which I received from him:

“ ‘Department of State, }
“ ‘Washington, Oct. 12th, 1852. }

“ ‘Sir: I have received your favor of Oct. 7th, and I have examined with care the papers accompanying it, as well as the sketch of the building which you have been good enough to send; the latter appears to me very beautiful. Your name and that of the gentlemen associated with you, are sufficient guarantees that the enterprise will be conducted with energy, fidelity, and capacity; and there can be no doubt that an exhibition of the kind you contemplate, if properly carried out, will be of very general interest and utility. You do not overrate my desire to promote your views. Of course I{157} cannot, as a member of the Government of the United States, give you any other aid than you have already received from the Customs Department, by making your building a bonded warehouse; but I will write to the representatives of the United States at the principal Courts of Europe, stating to them strongly my sense of the importance of your enterprise, and the numerous reasons in my mind why they should give your agent, Mr. Buscheck, all the aid and support that they properly can. I am, sir, with great respect, your ob’t serv’t,

“ ‘Daniel Webster.
“ ‘Theodore Sedgwick, Esq., New York.’

“Permit me, sir, to say a word respecting the building itself. We intend—and I believe it is not too much to claim—that the Palace itself shall make an epoch in the architecture of our city. We believe that it will give an impulse to construction in the material of iron that will be of the greatest service to that interest. Iron constructions have already been carried far forward by a most intelligent and accomplished mechanic—Mr. James Bogardus—and I believe that the experience of this building will give it a great additional impulse. Its superior lightness, durability, cheapness, and facility of construction give it immense advantages over any other material. We are erecting an edifice that{158} will cover, on the ground floor, two and a half acres, and it will be done in the winter, in about six months, for a sum not much varying from $200,000. If any one compares this time and the time with what would be required for a building of any other material, except wood, the immense superiority of iron is most perceptible. But there are, sir, ulterior considerations which I wish clearly to state. The large cities of the elder world, especially on the Continent, possess great galleries for popular instruction and entertainment. It is, at first sight, remarkable, though, in fact, easily intelligible, that in a country reposing entirely on popular power, comparatively nothing is done on a great public scale for the pleasure and instruction of our adult people. We have no galleries, no parks. This is not the place to say anything in favor of a park, though an object which should be dear to the heart of every New Yorker. But I desire in regard to the other objects, to point out how easy it will be hereafter to convert this building into a great People’s Gallery of Art. Its structure is eminently adapted for the purpose. We stand here on the city’s ground, and it will be completely in the power of the city hereafter to accomplish this result. Long after our Association shall have disappeared, I hope this building may stand—as long as yonder massive and majestic creation; and like that, in the hands{159} of the public authorities, be one of those monuments which makes the Government dear to the people. [Cheers.] Allow me to say a few words of our purposes. The undertaking is a private one—fostered by no governmental aid; but the interests are so numerous and divided that not the slightest color is afforded for the charge of speculation. There are, I venture to say, very few undertakings of equal magnitude which are represented by so large a number of parties, and it thus becomes practicable to impress upon the direction and management of the enterprise that broad, liberal, impartial, and, as it were, national character which is essential to its proper development. If our success is what we expect and intend it shall be, we shall claim the honor of it for our institutions—those institutions which enable private individuals to accomplish what in other countries vast governmental efforts are required to effect. We shall claim the honor for the country and for the people; for that mixture of individual energy and practical accommodation which gives such wonderful efficiency to the American character; for that public spirit and private good feeling of which we have such striking evidence here to-day—bringing together at this moment, men of all parties, to work together for a common object of general interest. [Cheers.] Other considerations, sir, yet remain, which, at some{160} other time, I shall ask higher and holier personages to develop, but which I cannot now altogether overlook. When this structure shall be raised—when its lofty dome shall have rushed upward to the point where that flag now floats—when its crystal surface shall reflect in streams of radiance our warm American sun—when its graceful and majestic interior shall be filled with the choicest products of both worlds—our minds will soar upward beyond and above all the material considerations to which I have alluded, and will recognize our own nothingness, and the infinite superiority of the Power by whose favor we are permitted to do what little we effect. And we shall then unite to pour forth our thanks for His mercies, and our supplications for His forgiveness and protection.” [Loud cheers.]

“Mr. President: Availing myself of the invitation so kindly extended to me by the Association over which you preside, I have come to participate in the appropriate ceremonies of this occasion, and to manifest the sincere interest and approval with which I regard your noble undertaking.

“You have now reared the first column of an edifice intended to attract the productions of genius, industry, and art from all the civilized{161}

nations of the world. This liberal design is in harmony with the prevailing spirit and tendency of the age in which we live, and its successful completion will form a conspicuous landmark in the history of American progress. It is a generous conception, alike honorable to the public spirit and patriotism of the citizens forming the Association, and important in its influence upon the advancement and happiness of society.

“The conquests already made, and the increasing interest evinced by our countrymen in the culture of those useful arts which promote the physical prosperity and moral elevation of a people are a source of just pride and encouragement to the American statesman.

“By the blessing of Providence we are permitted to work out our destiny in a period of profound peace. For more than a third of a century the civilized world has been exempt from those destructive wars and convulsions which had so long wasted the best energies of the human race. Nobler purposes engage the thoughts of men and the councils of nations.

“Instead of meeting in battle array, and spreading havoc and desolation over the face of the earth, a kindlier rivalry prevails, and governments cope with each other in a more generous spirit of emulation; in works of beneficence and improvement; in the expansion of commerce,{162} the encouragement of industry, and the triumphs of peaceful invention.

“People, widely separated from each other by intervening seas and diversities of language and institutions are now drawn nearer together by rapid and constant commercial intercourse. Remote countries are enabled to confer inestimable benefits upon each other by a free interchange of useful discoveries and improvements, thus stimulating industry and skill throughout the world, each imparting to all the fruits of its own civilization, and (above all) diffusing over the globe the spirit of universal brotherhood, which, in God’s good time, shall unite the human family by the cordial ties of sympathy and concord.

“When considered in a mere political aspect, the wonderful display of the industry of all nations, exhibited in England last year, must be regarded as one of the most important events in modern history.

“I rejoice to witness the enlightened efforts of my own countrymen to emulate so noble an example.

“The prosecution and success of the enterprise, now so auspiciously begun, cannot fail to exert a salutary influence, and to produce the most valuable results.

“It will elevate the national character abroad, and advance our best interests at home.

“It will stimulate our people to new and{163} higher efforts, until we shall finally attain to an equality with the older nations in every useful and ornamental art. It will promote the development and improvement of those natural advantages, so varied and remarkable, with which our country is favored; and furnish another proof of the elevating influence of free institutions.

“In conclusion, Mr. President and gentlemen of the Association, permit me to congratulate you upon this auspicious commencement. The whole country will rejoice in the consummation of your great purpose. Accept my sincere wishes that your labors in the work of civilization and beneficent progress may be crowned with the success which is due to so bright an example of disinterested public spirit.”

Mayor Kingsland followed, in a few brief remarks, expressive of his sense of the importance of the undertaking, and his sincere desire to see it carried out to a most successful completion.

General Talmadge, on the part of the American Institute, offered the managers of the Crystal Palace his warmest congratulations upon the raising of the first pillar of their edifice, and that, too, under such auspicious circumstances. The American Institute (he said) was glad to find such worthy comrades co-operating with them to advance the general prosperity of the country.

Appropriate airs were then played by the{164} band, and the “large assemblage” shortly afterward went their way rejoicing in the event of the day, with hearty wishes for the successful completion of the New York Crystal Palace. Such was the first formal celebration of what seemed to its projectors a most stupendous enterprise. But the next year saw a much more imposing demonstration, when, on July 14th, 1853, the nearly completed building was formally inaugurated. The President of the United States traveled from Washington to New York to take part in the august ceremonial, his deliberate progress of several days, by coach, boat, and train, being the theme of many columns of patriotic chronicles in the daily press. Here is a leading journal’s account of the opening exercises:

“The 14th of July, 1853, will henceforward rank in our history as a great day. Then was consecrated unto Art and Industry a building novel and splendid, as regards architecture, and containing productions from all parts of the earth. The Crystal Palace is far more beautiful than its original in London, though much inferior in size. It covers, however, five acres. Its sides are composed of glass, supported by iron. Its dome is truly magnificent, and is a triumph of art. The prevailing colors of the ceiling are blue, red, and cream color. The single fault we find with the colors of the other portions of the{165} building is that the supporting pillars are of the same color with the other solid works, while, if they were bronzed, a certain sameness would be avoided.

“Notwithstanding the immense confusion of the Palace on the day preceding the inauguration, we were surprised, on entering it yesterday morning, to find the dome completed and glorious in its artistic beauty; the stairways arrayed with their crimson and gold, and many of the divisions elaborate in their ornamentation, completely arranged, and containing their various contributions.

“The vastness of the City of New York was strikingly illustrated by the weather of yesterday. The President and his suite were caught in a heavy rain in the lower part of the city, lasting an hour, while the early visitors at the Palace were ignorant of the circumstance, the atmosphere being dry and the sun bright in that quarter.

“The approaches to the Palace were very much crowded as we proceeded there about eleven o’clock. The thickly-studded drinking-shops were flaunting in their intemperate seductions. The various shows of monsters, mountebanks, and animals, numerous as the jubilee-days of the Champs Élysées, opened wide their attractions to simple folk. Little speculators in meats, fruits, and drinks had their{166} tables and stalls al fresco. A rush and whirl of omnibuses, coaches, and pedestrians encircled the place. But amid all this was plainly discernable the excellent provisions of the police to maintain order. The entrances to the Palace were kept clear, and no disturbance manifested itself through the day. Different colored tickets admitted the visitors at three different sides of the Palace, the fourth closing up against the giant Croton Water Reservoir.

“There were two platforms partially under the dome, the centre point under which being occupied by Baron Marochetti’s exceedingly absurd statue of Washington, with Carew’s indescribably absurd statue of Webster—the worst calumny on that great man ever yet perpetrated, or that can be perpetrated—standing behind it. One of these platforms was toward Forty-second Street, or the north nave; the other toward the Croton Water Reservoir, on the east nave. According to the programme, they were filled by the following classes of persons:

“We believe there was no Foreign Commissioner, who came from Europe to be present at the Exhibition, but the Earl of Ellesmere. The absence of this Commissioner yesterday was much to be regretted, the more so as he was prevented from coming by indisposition. Lady Ellesmere and her two daughters were present, however.

“There were two military bands—Dodsworth, stationed in the west gallery; Bloomfield’s U. S.{170} Band, in the south gallery, and an orchestra, with Noll’s Military Band, and a grand chorus, accompanied also by an organ, in the east gallery.

“The President, being detained by the storm, did not arrive at the appointed time of one o’clock, being delayed till about an hour later. When he did arrive, however, with his suite, civil and military, he was warmly greeted by the people within the building, who amounted to some 20,000, as far as we could judge. The United States Band struck up ‘Hail Columbia,’ and finished with ‘Yankee Doodle.’ This part of the day’s proceedings was extremely interesting. When the shouts had died away, and thousands of fair hands, waving their handkerchiefs, had exhausted their first burst of enthusiasm, Bishop Wainright delivered, in a full, round voice, his appropriate prayer.

“Then came stealing through the vast aisles the hymn of Old Hundred set to semi-secular words. The effect where we stood under the dome was mystically grand. It might be imagined to typify the voices of distant nations rolling in harmonious vastness through the aisles, and bearing the accents of gentleness and beneficence. Their artistic interpretation was intrusted to the ladies and gentlemen of the Sacred Harmonic Society, and admirably did they execute their task. Mr. George Bristow{171} was the conductor of the body. Mr. Timm, however, was the chief director of all the musical arrangements. The hymn ran thus:

“Next Mr. Theodore Sedgwick, the President of the Crystal Palace Association, rose and addressed President Pierce. The President replied evidently impromptu, and his words were well chosen. He appeared fatigued in the previous efforts he had made in public speaking during his journey, and was very brief. Mr. Pierce, however, most favorably impressed his auditory. He was fluent, earnest, and unabashed before so vast an auditory. Mr. Sedgwick, when the President had finished, proposed three cheers{172} for the President, which were responded to by the multitude.

“In the mere proprieties of the day the scene passed off well. The speeches had the excellence of brevity; the music was fine and varied, great rivalry evidently existing between the different bands and orchestras; the audience was unexceptionable in its deportment; the appearance of the feminine portion was brilliant, and it must be added that the directors liberally provided a ladies’ refreshment room; the attention of those in authority, the new uniformed police included, was unremitting; the progress made in decorating, finishing, and arraying the details of the building and its contents in the few last days, when all seemed to promise disorder and defeat on the promised day of opening, was a veritable wonder of industry; the arrangements of tickets, places, entrance, exits, were admirable; the accommodations for the corps of reporters were liberal and thoughtful; the positions of the sculptural attractions were well chosen as to locality, light, and combined effect; and in a word, the whole was arranged as to outward show with a skill that was unsurpassable.

“It was a thing to be seen once in a lifetime. As we grow in wealth and strength we may build a much greater Crystal Palace, and accumulate more imperial-like treasures than we could now afford to purchase, but it cannot have the effect{173} of this one. This has been the first love of its kind. The second cannot bring the exhilaration and glory of the first, though exhausting the wealth of genius in its production. In this we behold the first decided stand of America among the industrial and artistic nations of the earth. In this we see a recognition of her progress, power, and possibilities. In this we find a yearning after Peace—Peace which shall dimple the face of the earth with the smiles of plenty, which shall join the hearts of nations, which shall abolish poverty and servitude. God’s earth loves Man to her innermost depths; treat her well with Peace, and she will reward him as a generous mother: abuse her with War and she will drive him from her presence. Such history has proved; but we may fairly believe that the historical vicissitudes of the past may be avoided in traveling the peaceful and generous path pointed out by the Crystal Palace.”

The comments and eulogiums of orators and press upon this first American World’s Fair were, of course, largely pitched in a tone that to-day is interesting only in contrast. It is archaic, primitive, embryonic, though not devoid of what has aptly been termed spread-eagleism. One writer, however, discussed the theme with memorable eloquence, and in a spirit of broad-minded philosophy that makes his almost every word as appropriate to the great fair of 1893 as{174} to that of forty years before. “The exhibition,” he said, “must be particularly instructive to Americans, because it will furnish them with evidences of a skill in many branches of creation beyond their own, and of models of workmanship which are superior precisely in those points in which their own are most deficient. No one, we presume, will push his national predilections so far as to deny that, in the finer characteristics of manufacture and art, we have yet a vast deal to learn. Stupendous as our advances have been in railroads, steamboats, canals, printing presses, hotels, and agricultural implements—rapidly as we are growing in excellence in a thousand departments of design and handicraft—astonishing as may be our achievements, under all the difficulties of an adverse national policy—adroit, ingenious, and energetic as we have shown ourselves in those labors which have been demanded by the existing conditions of our society, we have yet few fabrics equal to those of Manchester, few wares equal to those of Birmingham and Sheffield, no silks like those of Lyons, no jewelry like that of Geneva, no shawls like those of the East, no mosaics like those of Italy. But, in our rapid physical improvements—growing, as we are, in prosperity, in population, in wealth, in luxuries of all kinds—these are the articles that we ought to have, and must have to give diversity to our industry, to relieve us from dependence{175} upon other nations, to refine our taste, and to enable the ornamental and elegant appliances of our life to keep pace with our external development. Mere wealth, without the refinements of wealth—barbaric ostentation, prodigal display, extravagant self-indulgence—can only corrupt morals and degrade character. But the cultivation of the finer arts redeems society from its grossness, spreads an unconscious moderation and charm around it, softens the asperities of human intercourse, elevates our ideals, and imparts a sense of serene enjoyment to all social relations. Our common people, immeasurably superior to the common people of other nations in easy means of subsistence, in intelligence, as in the sterling virtues, are yet almost as immeasurably behind them in polished and gentle manners, and the love of music, painting, statuary, and all the more refining social pleasures.

“These Exhibitions, then, which make us acquainted with the superlative arts of other nations, cannot but be highly useful to us. But they have also another use—a moral, if not a religious use, in that they teach us so powerfully the dependence of nations upon each other—their mutual relations, and the absolute necessity of each to the comfortable existence of all the rest. There is hardly an article in the Crystal Palace to which the labor of all the world{176} has not in some sort contributed—hardly a machine which is not an embodied record of the industrial progress of the world—hardly a fabric which, analyzed, does not carry us to the ends of the earth, or which does not connect us intimately with the people of every clime—with the miners who tortured its raw material from the dark cave, or the diver who brought it from the bottom of the sea—with the solitary mariner who shielded it from the tempests—with the poor, toil-worn mechanic who gave it form or color, or with the artist who imparted to it its final finish. Thus, no man liveth to himself alone, even in his most ordinary occupations; he is part and parcel of us, as we are of him. A wonderful and touching unity pervades the relations of the race; all men are useful to all men; and we who fancy that, in some important respects, we stand on the summit level of humanity, have a deep interest in the laborers of the vales—in the celerity, the excellence and the success of what they do, and in the comfort and happiness of their general condition. As Emerson has wisely sung, in that sweet poem of his:

“There is also another thought suggested by our topic which contains a world of meaning. We are apt to speak, in our discussions, of the{177}

progress of industry, but do we always ask ourselves wherein that progress consists? Is it in the greater perfection to which, in modern times, we have carried the works of our hands? Look at the elegant tissues of Persia and India, or at the flexible blades of Toledo and Damascus, and say in how far we have surpassed these works of semi-barbarous ages and people, with all our boasted mechanical improvements! Can we imagine anything more splendid, more rich, and more delicate than the clothes in which the Oriental princes still array themselves, as their forefathers used to array themselves centuries ago? Have we yet a dye more brilliant than the Tyrian, a sculpture equal to that of Greece, an architecture better than that of the ‘Dark Ages,’ paintings on glass to compare with those in the old cathedrals, workers in bronze to rival a Cellini? Is it not the highest compliment that we pay to a product of skill or genius to say of it that it is ‘classical,’ that it is worthy of the models that have been preserved for ages in our galleries and museums? What then do we mean when we speak of ourselves as more advanced than former nations; what is that difference between us which authorizes us to use the word progress and to look back with a complacent half-pitying eye upon the attainments of the generations that have passed away?

“It is this: that in our discoveries in science,{178} by our applications of those discoveries to practical art, by the enormous increase of mechanical power consequent upon mechanical invention, we have universalized all the beautiful and glorious results of industry and skill, we have made them a common possession of the people, and given to society at large, to almost the meanest member of it, the enjoyments, the luxury, the elegance which in former times were the exclusive privilege of kings and nobles. Formerly the labor of the world fed, and clothed, and ornamented the Prince and his Court, or the warrior and his chieftains—but now it feeds and clothes and ornaments the peasant and his family. Then the ten thousand poor, miserable wretches worked for the one, or the few, but now the ten thousand work for the ten thousand. Then the wealth of provinces was drained to heap up splendors for the lord of the province, but now that wealth is multiplied and diffused, to give happiness to the commonalty. All the concentrated capital of Lyons, and Leeds, and Lowell, all our complicated machinery, while it creates new demands for human labor, is intended to cheapen manufacturing products, as the effort of that cheapness is to put the fabrics of woolen and silk within the reach of the poorest classes. Our books, at this day, may not be individually superior to the books of the days of Elzevir, but millions of men now possess books where hundreds only possessed{179} them formerly. Our vases and cups may not be more exquisitely wrought than the vases and cups of Benevento Cellini, but they are wrought, not like his, for Popes and Emperors, but for Smith and Jones, and all the branches, collateral and direct, of the immense families of Smith and Jones. Our roads are not built at a vast expense, for some royal progress, or the passage of a conquering army, but are built to roll from house to house the precious treasures of industry, or a happy freight of excursionists, giving their hearts a holiday of merriment and innocent delight.

“Our progress in these modern times, then, consists in this, that we have democratized the means and appliances of a higher life; that we have spread, far and wide, the civilizing influences of art; that we have brought, and are bringing more and more the masses of the people up to the aristocratic standard of taste and enjoyment, and so diffuse the influence of splendor and grace over all minds. Grander powers have been infused into society. A larger variety and a richer flavor have been given to all our individual experiences; and, what is more, the barriers that once separated our race, the intervals of time and space that made almost every tribe and every family the enemy of every other tribe and family have been annihilated to enable the common interests and common enjoyments to renovate and warm us into amity of feeling and the friendly{180} rivalry of fellow-workmen pursuing, under different circumstances, the same great ends.

“Legislation, rightly directed, might have done and might yet do much for the civilization and advancement of society; but, unfortunately, in most nations of the earth, the legislation, having been under the exclusive control of a self-styled higher class, has impeded rather than hastened the movement. Yet, in the face of this terrible obstacle, under all the evils of the insular monopoly of Great Britain, seeking to aggrandize her own manufacturing industry at the expense of the industry of the rest of mankind, the genius of practical art has triumphed, and will triumph still more over every difficulty. It is raising the laborer to his true position; it is facilitating the association of men; it is harmonizing their interests; and, whether legislation helps it or not, it will ultimately redeem our race from dependence and slavery. And herein is the chief reason why we to-day salute with satisfaction the opening of the Crystal Palace.”

The Crystal Palace was not a financial success. Nearly a million dollars were lost in the enterprise. Finally, on the evening of Tuesday, October 5th, 1858, the edifice was destroyed by fire, with most of its contents. It was really not a very great conflagration, measured by others that have occurred. Yet it meant the destruction of an entire World’s Fair establishment,{181} and was, in those times, something more than a nine day’s wonder. “About five o’clock last evening,” said a next morning’s paper, “smoke was seen issuing from a large room in the north nave, and in front of the entrance on Forty-second Street, and in less than half an hour thereafter, the Palace was a total wreck, and nothing now remains of this edifice but a heap of unsightly ruins. The octagonal turrets at each corner still remain standing, while here and there on every side may be seen stacks of iron, the remains of staircases, and portions of the framework composing the galleries.

“From the room above mentioned flames soon made their appearance, and spread with incredible rapidity in every direction. There were about 2,000 persons scattered about the edifice at the time, all of whom, the moment the alarm of ‘fire’ was raised, made a rush for the Sixth Avenue entrance, the doors of which were thrown open. The entrance on Fortieth Street was closed, there being no other means of ingress or egress except on Sixth Avenue. Under the direction of ex-Captain Maynard and several of the Directors of the Institute, the crowd of visitors were conducted safely to the street, and no one that we have heard of was in anywise injured. Some of the exhibitors endeavored to save their property, but were forced to turn toward the door, and were soon compelled to flee{182} to the street. The amount of property saved is comparatively trifling. Mr. Smith, an employee of the Institute, behaved nobly. He was in charge of the jewelry department, and was engaged repairing a case when the alarm was given. He finished the case and closed the door and then went toward where the fire was. The smoke was so dense that he almost suffocated. He saw the fire at the Forty-second Street entrance and then ran back to the property that had been placed in his charge, which property consisted of a quantity of watches valued at several thousand dollars. Seizing the case, he dragged it from its fastening along the gallery, down a flight of stairs, and thence out into the street, the entrance at this point having at this time been broken open. While on his way out, the dome was all in flames. The smoke was so dense that he could see but a few feet either side of him, and he is under the impression that he was the last man in the Palace before the dome fell. A young man named Wallis, also in the employ of the Institute, heard the alarm, and ran toward Smith, whom he desired to break open the case with an axe, in order that the jewelry and watches could be more readily got at, but Smith told him he would not do so. Wallis was obliged to run to the street, the smoke nearly suffocating him. The view from the street and neighboring buildings{183} was very grand, and thousands of persons thronged to the scene of conflagration.”

The Institute mentioned was the well-known American Institute, of New York, which, after the close of the World’s Fair proper, had occupied the Palace with its annual fair. It was reckoned that the total loss by the fire was a million dollars, but the list of the chief exhibitors and their individual losses, published next day, now looks absurdly meagre. And thus passed out of existence the first Universal Exhibition of Art and Industry ever held on the American Continent. When the next was held, this was practically a new nation. The greatest war of modern times had been fought and the National Constitution amended in many important respects. Political and social changes of startling character were visible on every hand. Material growth and development had been achieved on a stupendous scale. Great inventions had been made. Every circumstance, indeed, rendered it fitting and necessary that the second World’s Fair should immeasurably exceed in all respects that which we have just described.

When the World’s Fair of 1853 was opened in New York it was evident that the American nation was nearing some great and important changes. When the Crystal Palace was burned in 1858, the nation was on the very verge of the “impending conflict” which had been long{184} foreseen. The war came. At its close America was a new nation. Its political, social, and industrial systems were transformed. Its growth and expansion received an enormous impetus. The influx of population and of ideas and arts from other countries was many-fold greater than ever before. And thus it approached the one-hundredth anniversary of its independence, and preparations were made to commemorate the time with a second Universal Exhibition.

The Centennial Exhibition, which was held in Philadelphia in 1876, was the greatest fair the world had then seen. None of its predecessors had equalled it in extent, or surpassed it in variety or general interest. Paris, in 1867, had given a more compact and systematic display, and at Vienna, in 1873, Oriental nations were more fully represented. But the American Exhibition had many points of superiority over those. It showed the natural products, industries, inventions, and arts of the Western Hemisphere as they had never been shown before, and brought them for the first time, in their fullness and perfection, in contrast with those of the Old World. In the department of machinery it was incomparably superior to all its predecessors, and also in that of farm implements and products. In fine arts it did not contain as many really great masterpieces as had been seen at Paris and Vienna, but it embraced a wider representation{185} of contemporary art from all parts of the world. In general manufactures the display was much greater in quantity than had ever before been attempted. And it greatly exceeded all other fairs as a really international exhibition, for every civilized state on the globe, excepting Greece and a few minor republics in Central and South America, was represented.

About 236 acres of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia were occupied by the Exhibition. The ground was admirably adapted for the purposes of the Fair. It was an elevated plateau, with three spurs jutting out toward the Schuylkill River. One of the three spurs was occupied by Memorial Hall, containing the art exhibition, another by Horticultural Hall, and the third by Agricultural Hall, while the broad plain where they joined contained the Main Building, Machinery Hall, United States Government Building, and about a hundred smaller structures. The grounds were traversed by five main avenues, a belt-line railroad, and many miles of minor walks. There was an extensive lake, and a splendid wealth of lawns, flower beds, and groves.

The Main Building was the largest edifice in the world. It was 1,876 feet long and 464 feet wide, covering 21½ acres of ground. In the centre were four square towers, 120 feet high. The facades at the end were 90 feet high, and the{186} corner towers 75 feet. The central aisle was 1,832 feet long, 120 feet wide, and 70 feet high. The framework was of iron, filled in with wood and glass. Nearly one-third of the space was occupied by American exhibitors. Great Britain and her colonies occupied the next largest area, with a display of enormous proportions and dazzling brilliancy. A single firm of silversmiths sent half a million dollars’ worth of wares. France and her colonies and the German Empire were also splendidly represented. Other conspicuous exhibitors were Holland, Belgium, Austria, Russia, Spain, Japan, Sweden and Norway, Italy, and China. Mexico, Brazil, Switzerland, Portugal, Egypt, Turkey, Denmark, Tunis, Chile, the Argentine Republic, Peru, the Orange Free State, the Sandwich Islands, and Venezuela were also represented. Never before had there been gathered together in one place such a comprehensive display of the arts and industries of so many of the peoples of the world.

Machinery Hall, which was especially devoted to machinery in motion, was 1,402 feet long and 360 feet wide, with an annex 208 by 210 feet for hydraulic machinery. There were more than 10,000 feet of shafting for conveying to the various machines the motive power generated by the huge Corliss engine. This enormous machine had cylinders of 44 inches diameter, and ten feet stroke, a fly-wheel 30 feet in diameter,{187} and 56 tons in weight, making 36 revolutions per minute. There were 20 tubular boilers of 70 horse-power each, and at 60 pounds pressure the work of the engine was about 1,400 horse-power. This building contained by far the largest and most varied display of working machinery that had at that time ever been seen in the world.

Horticultural Hall was a graceful Moorish palace, largely built of glass, and contained a magnificent exhibit of trees, shrubs, and flowers from all parts of the world. Agricultural Hall consisted of a nave 826 feet long and 100 wide, crossed by three transepts, each 465 feet long, and from 80 to 100 feet wide. The inclosed space was about 12 acres in extent, and it contained a marvellous display of agricultural implements and products from all parts of the world. Memorial Hall was intended as a permanent building, and was constructed in substantial manner of granite, glass, and iron. It is 365 feet long and 210 feet wide, with a square tower at each corner, and a four-sided dome at the centre. Besides these buildings the United States Government erected a vast structure, 360 by 300 feet, for the display of the operations of its various departments; many foreign governments had buildings of their own; so had more than a score of the States; and there were also buildings for the Judges, and for a great number of special industries.{188}

The technical history of the enterprise may be briefly recounted as follows: The Exhibition was really a natural outgrowth of the Universal Exposition held at Paris in 1867. That affair was much the most extensive international exhibition ever held up to that time, and its brilliant success produced a marked impression throughout the civilized world. Austria took immediate measures to rival it, and carried out her ambitious plans six years later at Vienna. Among the many Americans who saw the wonderful show on the banks of the Seine there were many who expressed a desire to see an enterprise of the kind attempted in their own country. It is believed that Gen. C. B. Norton, of New York, one of the Commissioners to the Paris Exposition, was the first who suggested the idea of a World’s Fair to commemorate the Centennial Anniversary of American Independence. This he did while viewing the preparations for the exposition in the Champs de Mars in company with Mr. Dudley S. Gregory, of New York, in the summer of 1866. His plan was to hold the exhibition in Central Park. Mr. Gregory returned in the fall and laid the matter before the American Institute, but it does not appear that any action was taken. The next agitation of the question was in June, 1868, when at a meeting of the Massachusetts exhibitors at Paris, held in the Music Hall, Boston, for the distribution of the awards forwarded{189} by the French Government to this country, Dr. C. J. Jackson offered a resolution in favor of an international exhibition in Washington, to open July 4th, 1876. After some speech-making the resolution was adopted. In the fall of the same year a meeting to forward the project was held in New York under the chairmanship of Dr. G. B. Loring. A committee of nine was appointed, but there the matter ended. New York had failed to appreciate the grandeur and importance of the project. Washington had a livelier comprehension, but was too poor to do anything that involved expenditure.

It now remained for Philadelphia to come forward. In 1869 Mr. M. Richard Muckle, of The Philadelphia Ledger, wrote a letter to President Grant, urging the holding of a World’s Fair in the city where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and this letter, widely published and commented upon, fairly set the ball in motion. Soon after it appeared the Franklin Institute and the Academy of Fine Arts memorialized Congress on the subject, and the City Councils appointed a Centennial Committee. In February, 1871, a committee from the New Jersey Legislature visited Philadelphia to confer with the Councils, and in April a delegation from Virginia came on the same errand. At the instance of the Pennsylvania members, Congress took up the question in the session of 1870-71, and on the 3d of March{190} passed an act “to provide for celebrating the One Hundredth Anniversary of American Independence by holding an International Exhibition of arts, manufactures, and products of the soil and mine in the City of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania, in the year 1876.” Under this act one hundred Commissioners were appointed; but it was found impossible to assemble a quorum of this unwieldy body, and the organization was changed by a supplementary act, providing for one Commissioner and one alternate from each State and Territory, appointed by the President on the nomination of the Governors. No money was appropriated. In June, 1872, Congress passed another act, creating a separate corporation, called the Board of Finance, to raise funds by subscriptions throughout the country, and to take entire charge of the finances of the Exhibition, which was made a stock concern, with a capital of $10,000,000, in shares of $10 each. Large subscriptions were at once obtained from the citizens of Philadelphia. The State of Pennsylvania appropriated $1,000,000; the City of Philadelphia, $1,500,000; the State of New Jersey, $100,000; and the States of Delaware, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, $10,000 each. Subscriptions amounting to about $250,000 were subsequently raised in New York City. The business men of the New England States also contributed, but the West gave almost nothing,{191} and the South nothing. The aggregate amount spent by foreign countries for the Exhibition was about $2,500,000.

On June 26th, 1873, Governor Hartranft informed the President that provision had been made for erecting the buildings. Upon that information the President, on July 3d of the same year, issued his proclamation declaring that the Exhibition would be held in 1876. Secretary Fish, on the 5th of July, informed the representatives of foreign nations of the Exhibition, and invited them to participate. Formal acceptances were received, before the beginning of 1876, from Great Britain, France, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Egypt, Denmark, Turkey, Switzerland, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Argentine Confederation, Sandwich Islands, China, Japan, Australia, Canada, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Colombia, Liberia, Orange Free State, Equador, Guatemala, Salvador, and Honduras. March 3d, 1875, Congress appropriated $505,000 for the arrangement of an official Government display, of which $150,000 was to be appropriated for the erection of a special building for the Government Exhibition. On the 4th of July, 1873, the Commissioners of Fairmount Park formally conveyed 450 acres of land at Lansdowne, in the Park, for buildings and other purposes of the Exhibition.{192}

In 1873 the Commission sent Professor W. P. Blake, of Connecticut, to the Vienna Exhibition as a Special Commissioner to study and report upon it. The General Director, Mr. A. T. Goshorn, also made a thorough examination of that fair. Ground was broken for the Exhibition buildings July 4th, 1874. Machinery Hall was completed in November, 1875, Horticultural Hall and the Main Building in January, 1876, and Memorial Hall and Agricultural Hall in April. In February, 1876, Congress appropriated $1,500,000 to complete the payments for the buildings, and thus enabled the Commission to open the Exhibition free from debt.

The formal opening of the Centennial Exhibition was effected on May 10th, 1876. At nine o’clock A.M. on that day the gates of the grounds, with the exception of those at the east end of the Main Building, were opened to the public at the established rate of admission of fifty cents each. The Main Building, Memorial Hall, and Machinery Hall were reserved for guests and exhibitors until the conclusion of the ceremonies, at about one P.M., when all restrictions were withdrawn. The inaugural ceremonies were conducted in the open air, on an area of about 300 by 700 feet between the Main Building and Memorial Hall. The concourse of spectators within sight of the ceremonies, though largely not within hearing distance, was more{193}

than 110,000. At an early hour a military parade moved from the city to the exhibition grounds. At its head was the First Troop of Philadelphia City Cavalry, acting as the bodyguard of the President of the United States. This was followed by the Boston Cadets and the Boston Lancers, escorting Governor Rice, of Massachusetts, and his staff. Governor Hartranft, of Pennsylvania, and his staff came next, and were succeeded by Major-General Bankson and a large body of Pennsylvania State troops. No flags nor other ensigns were displayed on or about the buildings and grounds until an appointed signal was given, and all the organs, bells, and other musical instruments awaited in silence the same notice.

At 10.15 A.M. the huge orchestra of one hundred and fifty pieces, under the direction of Mr. Theodore Thomas, began playing the various national airs of the world. First was played “The Washington March,” after which came the national music of the Argentine Republic, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey, concluding with “Hail Columbia.” On the arrival of the President of the United States—General U. S. Grant—accompanied by the Emperor Dom Pedro, of Brazil, the Director General of the Exhibition, and other notable{194} personages, the “Centennial Inauguration March,” which had been composed by Richard Wagner for the occasion, was performed. The Rev. Dr. Matthew Simpson, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, then offered prayer. A hymn, written by John Greenleaf Whittier, was sung by the choir of one thousand voices to music composed by John K. Paine, with organ and orchestral accompaniment. John Welsh, President of the Centennial Board of Finance, formally presented the buildings to the Centennial Commission. A cantata, written by Sidney Lanier, of Georgia, with music by Dudley Buck, was sung by the chorus, with solos by Myron W. Whitney. General Joseph R. Hawley, President of the United States Centennial Commission, formally presented the Exhibition to the President of the United States, who responded in a brief address, closing with the words, “I declare the International Exhibition now open.” At that moment a thousand flags were unfurled on every hand, innumerable bells and whistles were sounded, a salute of one hundred guns was fired, and Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” was sung by the great choir, with organ and orchestral accompaniment. Then the President and other distinguished guests formed in a small procession and moved through the principal buildings. In Machinery Hall the President and the Emperor of Brazil set in motion the great engine{195} and all the machinery connected therewith, being assisted by Mr. George H. Corliss, the builder and giver of the engine. Then the President and other guests were escorted to the Judges’ pavilion, where a brief reception was held. This concluded the opening exercises, and thenceforth the grounds and buildings were open to the public, at fifty cents admission, every week-day until November 10th, when the Exhibition was closed.

A number of the State Governments arranged excursions to the Exhibition by the State officers and citizens generally. These “State days,” as they were termed, were as follows: New Jersey, August 24th; Connecticut, September 7th; Massachusetts, September 14th; New York, September 21st; Pennsylvania, September 28th; Rhode Island, October 5th; New Hampshire, October 12th; Delaware and Maryland, October 19th; Ohio, October 26th; and Vermont, October 27th.

The other principal events on the season’s calendar were as follows: May 23d, Session of True Templars; May 24th, Meeting of Judges of Awards; May 30th, Decoration Day and Opening of the Bankers’ Building; June 1st, Parade of Knights Templar; June 7th, Convention in Brewers’ Hall; June 12th, Women’s International Temperance Convention; June 15th, Dedication of Ice Water Fountain by the{196} Sons of Temperance; June 27th to July 10th, Encampment of the West Point Cadets; July 1st, Excursion of Soldiers’ Orphans from Lincoln Home; July 4th, Centennial Celebration of the Declaration of Independence and Dedication of the Catholic Total Abstinence Beneficial Society’s Fountain; July 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, Excursions given by the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad to its Employees; July 15th, Encampment of the Columbus, Ohio, Cadets; August 3d to 9th, Encampment of Pennsylvania Troops; August 30th, Excursion of Steinway & Sons’ Employees; August 22d, National and International Rowing Matches began on the Schuylkill River; August 23d, Parade of the Knights of Pythias; August 28th, Parade of Swiss Citizens; August 29th, Reception by the Mayor of Philadelphia; September 1st to October 18th, Live Stock Exhibitions; September 2d, Encampment of Connecticut National Guard; September 4th, International Medical Congress; September 20th, Odd Fellows’ Day; September 23d, International Rifle Teams—Scotch, Irish, Australian, and American—visited the Exhibition; September 28th, Grand Display of Fireworks; October 7th, Encampment of Cadets of Virginia Military Institute; October 12th, Dedication of Statue of Columbus; October 14th, Dedication of Statue of Dr. Witherspoon; October 19th, Tournament;{197} October 26th, Merchants’ Day; November 2d, Dedication of Statue to Bishop Allen by Colored Citizens; November 7th, Reception by Women’s Centennial Executive Committee; November 9th, International Pyrotechnic Contest; November 10th, Closing Ceremonies.

The United States Centennial Commission held an imposing commemoration of the Centennial Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in Independence Square on July 4th. The following was the programme of exercises:

1. Grand Overture, “The Great Republic,” founded on the National Air, “Hail Columbia,” and arranged for the occasion by the composer, George F. Bristow, of New York; rendered by the orchestra under the direction of Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore.

2. The President of the Commission, General Joseph R. Hawley, called the assembly to order and announced the acting Vice-President of the United States, Senator Thomas W. Ferry, as the presiding officer of the day in the absence of the President of the United States.

3. Prayer by the Rev. Dr. William B. Stevens, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania.

4. Hymn, “Welcome to all Nations,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, to the music of Keller’s “National Hymn.”

5. Reading of the Declaration of Independence{198} from the original manuscript by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia.

6. Greeting from Brazil; a Hymn for the First Centennial of American Independence, composed by A. C. Gomes, of Brazil, at the request of the Emperor Dom Pedro; rendered by the orchestra.

8. Grand Triumphal March, with chorus, “Our National Banner;” words by Dexter Smith, of Massachusetts, music by Sir Julius Benedict, of England.

Space will not permit the printing here of the oration or other features of the programme, with the exception of the hymn, “Welcome to All Nations,” by Oliver Wendell Holmes, which was as follows:

The distribution of awards to exhibitors occurred in the Judges’ Hall on Wednesday, September 27th, with an interesting programme of music and addresses.

On November 9th a farewell banquet was{200} given to the Foreign Commissioners and Judges of Awards by the Centennial Commission and Board of Finance in St. George’s Hall. The guests on this occasion included the Commissioners and Diplomatic Representatives of the nations which had participated in the Exhibition, the Chief Justice and Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, a number of Senators and members of the United States Congress, the Secretary of State and other members of the Cabinet of the United States, the Governors of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Delaware, and New Jersey; the Mayor of Philadelphia, the Presidents of the Philadelphia City Councils, and the officers and members of the Fairmount Park Commission, the Centennial Commission, and the Centennial Board of Finance. The President of the United States was the presiding officer of the evening. During the course of the banquet addresses were made by representatives of the several bodies participating, and by Commissioners of each of the foreign countries represented, each being introduced in turn by the President of the Centennial Commission amid the applause of the guests.

The closing ceremonies of the Exhibition occurred on Friday, November 10th. They were to have been held like the opening exercises, out-of-doors, but stormy weather made it necessary{201} to hold them within the Judges’ Hall. At sunrise a Federal salute of thirteen guns was fired. The programme proper was opened with the Inauguration March, composed by Richard Wagner, and performed by the orchestra under Theodore Thomas. Prayer was offered by the Rev. Dr. Joseph A. Seiss. Addresses followed by D. J. Morrell, United States Centennial Commissioner from Pennsylvania, and Chairman of the Executive Committee; John Welsh, President of the Centennial Board of Finance; A. T. Goshorn, Director General, and Joseph R. Hawley, President of the United States Centennial Commission; alternating with musical selections rendered by the chorus and orchestra. After General Hawley’s address, the national hymn, “My Country, ’tis of Thee,” was rendered by the orchestra, choir, and general audience. During the singing, the American flag which was carried by John Paul Jones on his frigate, the “Bon Homme Richard,” in 1779, was unfurled above the platform, and a salute of forty-seven guns was fired. Then the President of the United States rose and said: “I now declare the International Exhibition of 1876 closed.” General Hawley said: “The President of the United States will now give the signal to stop the great engine.” The President then waved his hand to a telegraph operator, who instantly sent an electric message to the{202} engineer in Machinery Hall, and at exactly 3.40 o’clock P.M. the great engine ceased to work. The singing of the Doxology by the choir and audience concluded the ceremony.

It will be of interest to add, for purposes of record and reference, some statistics regarding the Exhibition. Nearly all supplies of goods, and nearly all visitors were brought to Philadelphia over the lines of two railroad companies, the Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia & Reading. During 1874 these roads delivered at the Exhibition grounds 3,341 loaded freight cars; in 1875, 10,479; and in 1876, 6,340; a total of 20,160 loaded cars bearing about 200,000 tons of freight. During the continuance of the Exhibition there arrived at the Centennial station of the Pennsylvania Railroad 23,972 passenger trains, and at the station of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, 42,495. The average number of trains daily was more than 410, and the average number of cars to each train more than 6, giving accommodations in the whole number of trains for over 20,000,000 passengers. The greatest service in one day at the Pennsylvania depot comprised 250 trains of 2,004 cars, bearing 58,347 passengers; and at the Philadelphia & Reading station on the same day 370 trains of 2,867 cars, bearing 185,800 passengers; a total of 620 trains, 4,871 cars, and 244,147 passengers. During the entire Exhibition{203} there arrived at the Pennsylvania depot 1,392,697 passengers, and at the Philadelphia & Reading 1,726,010.

There were received at the Exhibition from all the countries of the world 154,273 packages of goods, weighing 57,116,658 pounds; and there were removed from the grounds at the close of the fair 58,700 packages, weighing 27,041,271 pounds.

From May 10th to November 10th, 1876, there were admitted to the grounds a grand total of 9,910,966 persons, from whom were received admission fees amounting to $3,813,724.49. The largest number admitted on any day was 274,919, on Pennsylvania Day, September 28th. The smallest number, 12,720, was admitted on Friday, May 12th. The largest number of persons passing through a single gate in a single hour was 1,870. The day of the week most popular among visitors was Thursday, with an average of 76,905 attendants, and the least popular was Monday, with an average of 50,051.

The total number of persons transported to and from the Exhibition was 19,821,932, of whom 3,574,528 came on local trains, 2,334,804 on railroad trains from out of the city, 10,557,100 by tramways, 556,500 by steamboat, 803,000 by carriages, and 1,996,000 on foot.{204}

CHAPTER V.

THE COLUMBIAN EXHIBITION.

THE New York World’s Fair of 1853 was the third universal exposition ever held, and was almost exactly contemporaneous with the second. That in Philadelphia in 1876 was the eighth. That in Chicago in 1893 will be the fourteenth, and will surpass in size and interest all its predecessors. As a rule, such exhibitions have been held simply to stimulate commerce and manufactures and educate the public in the progress of art and industry. One notable exception to this rule was observed in 1876, when the Universal Exhibition at Philadelphia, besides fulfilling those objects, also served to commemorate the centenary of American Independence. So, too, the great fair at Chicago is to mark the four hundredth anniversary of that memorable enterprise in which Christopher Columbus found a new world, not only, as the legend oh his banner declared, for Castile and Leon, but for civilization and for humanity.

Great as was the advancement of the nation, material and otherwise, between 1853 and 1876, it has been no less marked and impressive between the latter date and the present time. The exhibition at Chicago, accordingly, may be expected{205} in like measure to surpass that at Philadelphia in variety and extent. There are new inventions to display which were unheard of in 1876, but which now are familiar as household words. There are the fruits of the labor and skill of the many millions who have been added to the population of America. There are the results of experience and observation at the great fairs held in other lands. There are innumerable circumstances and conditions combining to make this by far the most important exhibition the world has yet seen.

During the years 1889 and 1890 there was much public discussion of the proposed celebration of the fourth Columbian centenary. When a general agreement was reached that it should chiefly take the form of a World’s Fair, the question arose, in what city the enterprise should be placed. Rivalry became exceedingly keen, especially between New York, Chicago, and Washington, and presently it was seen that one of these three must secure the prize. But which? Washington was the national capital, and thus an appropriate site; it was accessible, it had magnificent grounds for the purpose. As for New York, it was the metropolis, the business and social capital, the chief port, the city of greatest size and wealth and interest. In favor of Chicago it was urged that it was, with its marvellous growth and enterprise, most truly{206} representative of the American spirit; that it was nearest to the centre of the country, and that in point of general fitness it was second to no other. The ultimate decision was left with Congress, and it was in favor of Chicago; whereupon all rivalries were forgotten, and New York and the whole nation joined loyally in the work of helping forward the gigantic undertaking.

Congress and the President gave to the enterprise the stamp of official sanction, and the State Department formally invited the nations of the world to participate in the great exhibition. In response no less than forty-nine nations and colonies sent prompt acceptances, and will accordingly make exhibits, showing the advances made in the arts and sciences and the progress generally of each in every field of human endeavor. These are: Argentine Republic, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Danish West Indies, Equador, France, Algeria, French Guiana, Germany, Great Britain, Barbadoes, British Columbia, British Guiana, Honduras, Cape Colony, Ceylon, Jamaica, New South Wales, New Zealand, Trinidad, Guatemala, Hayti, British Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Dutch Guiana, Dutch West Indies, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Persia, Peru, Russia, Salvador, San Domingo, Siam, Spain, Cuba, Porto Rico, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zanzibar.{207} Of course all the States and Territories of the Union will also be fully represented, with displays that will surpass by far those made at Philadelphia in 1876.

It is fitting to take at least a brief glance at the extraordinary city in which this latest and greatest Universal Exhibition is to be held—extraordinary both in its history and in its present status. The first white man who trod its soil was the famous French missionary, Father Marquette. He went thither in 1673. Later, La Salle, Joliet, Hennepin, and others visited the region; but none of them made any settlement there. Indeed, while Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other cities were attaining great size and almost venerable age, the site of this Western metropolis remained a wilderness. In 1804, however, the Government established a frontier military post at the mouth of the Chicago River, calling it Fort Dearborn. The little garrison remained there eight years and then, in 1812, was annihilated by the Indians, though a few other white settlers survived and held their ground. The next attempt at settlement occurred in 1829, when James Thompson surveyed the site for a proposed town. On August 10th, 1833, the settlement was incorporated, there being twenty-eight legal voters. On March 4th, 1837, a city charter was obtained, and thenceforth the growth of the{208} place was rapid and substantial beyond all imagination. In 1840 the population was 4,479; in 1850 it was 28,269; in 1860 it was 112,172; and 1870 it was 298,977.

In the fall of 1871 occurred an event notable not only in the history of Chicago, but of the whole world. A little before midnight, on October 9th, a fire broke out, at the corner of De Koven and Jefferson Streets. The weather for weeks had been dry, and a high wind prevailed. Before daylight the fire had burned its way to Lincoln Park, nearly four miles; and by the following afternoon it had spread over 2,100 acres, 100,000 people were homeless, and $200,000,000 worth of property was destroyed. The business part of the city was a waste of ashes. With characteristic generosity the whole country sprang to the relief of the stricken city. A fund of nearly $5,000,000 was quickly collected, and the work of succoring the needy and re-building the city was begun. Within two years, almost every trace of the stupendous calamity had vanished, and the growth of the city proceeded even more swiftly than before. In 1880 its population was 503,185, and in 1890 it had been swelled to the enormous total of 1,098,576—the second city of the Union. Its growth is at the rate of more than 1,000 per week.

When it was incorporated, Chicago covered an area of two and a half square miles; now it{209}

covers 181.7 square miles. Its lake front is 22 miles, and its frontage on the river 58 miles. It has more than 2,230 miles of streets, mostly broad and well paved. Its water supply is drawn from away out in Lake Michigan, and amounts to a hundred gallons daily for each inhabitant, though the works are capable of furnishing twice that quantity. Twenty-six independent railroad lines enter the city, making it the greatest railroad centre in America. The principal roads are the Atchinson, Topeka & Santa Fé, Baltimore & Ohio, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, Chicago, St. Paul & Kansas City; Chicago & Alton, Chicago & Eastern Illinois, Chicago & Grand Trunk, Chicago & Northern Pacific, Chicago & Northwestern, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis; Illinois Central, Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, Louisville, New Albany & Chicago; Michigan Central, connecting with other Vanderbilt roads; New York, Lake Erie & Western; Northern Pacific, Pennsylvania, Union Pacific, Wabash, and Wisconsin Central.

Nor is Chicago lacking in facilities for transportation by water. Its situation gives it easy access to all the commercial activities of the great lake system; and it has direct water communication by way of the St. Lawrence River{210} with Montreal, and by the Erie Canal and Hudson River with New York. In the year 1890 the arrivals and clearances at Chicago numbered 18,472, aggregating a tonnage of 8,774,154 tons. About 25 per cent. of the entire lake-carrying trade belongs to Chicago.

There is, moreover, connection with the Mississippi River by way of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, the annual traffic amounting to about 1,000,000 tons.

In a city of such rapid growth as Chicago, dealing in real estate and the construction of buildings are important departments of business. Thus, in 1890 a total of 11,608 buildings were erected in the city, having a gross frontage of more than fifty miles, and costing $47,322,100. During the same year the transactions in real estate aggregated $227,486,959.

The general business of Chicago can only be stated by the use of figures too vast for human comprehension. No man, for example, can appreciate what “a billion dollars” means. Well, the commerce of Chicago in 1890 amounted to more than that, in fact, to $1,380,000,000. Much of this came from the grain farms of the Northwest, for Chicago is the greatest grain market in the world. According to its Board of Trade reports, the city in the year 1890 received 15,133,971 bushels of barley and shipped 9,470,221; received 81,117,251 bushels of corn{211} and shipped 90,556,109; received 4,358,058 barrels of flour and shipped 4,410,535; received 13,366,699 bushels of wheat and shipped 11,975,276; received 64,430,560 bushels of oats and shipped 70,768,222; received 2,946,720 bushels of rye and shipped 3,280,433; received 6,244,847 bushels of flaxseed and shipped 6,594,581; received 72,102,031 pounds of grass seed and shipped 59,213,035; received 7,663,828 live hogs and shipped 1,985,700; received 77,985 pounds of pork and shipped 392,786; received 147,475,267 pounds of lard and shipped 471,910,128; received 300,198,241 pounds of cured meats and shipped 823,801,460; received 109,704,834 pounds of dressed beef and shipped 964,134,807.

In the same year 2,219,312 head of cattle, and 5,733,082 hogs were slaughtered. Sales of lumber were 2,050,000,000 feet. The breweries produced 2,250,000 barrels of beer. The general jobbing trade aggregated $486,600,000, of which $93,730,000 was in dry goods, groceries coming next with a volume of $56,700,000; boots and shoes, $25,900,00; clothing, $21,500,000; manufactured iron, $5,680,000; tobacco and cigars, $10,850,000; music books and sheet music, $22,000,000; books, stationery, and wall-paper, $25,500,000; pig-iron, $20,035,000; coal, $25,075,000; hardware and cutlery, $17,500,000; liquors, $13,800,000; jewelry, watches and diamonds,{212} $20,400,000, and other lines in smaller proportions.

Nor does this marvellous city lag behind in manufactures. The statistics of 1890 show 3,250 factories, with $190,000,000 capital; 177,000 workmen, $96,200,000 wages, and a total output valued at $538,000,000. The iron industry alone employed 34,000 workmen, who received $18,500,000 in wages.

To meet the needs of this vast volume of business, extensive banking facilities are required. The total of bank clearances in Chicago in 1890 was $4,093,145,904.

Figures are dry reading. But these few statistics are necessary to show what manner of city is this Western metropolis in which the greatest exhibition of the world’s industry is to be held. How the city was selected has already been told. The conditions on which the work was carried forward may be well explained in the words of W. T. Baker, the President of the Local Board of Commissioners: “The Act of Congress, approved April 25th, 1890, providing for the Exposition, states in the preamble that ‘such an exhibition should be of a national and international character, so that not only the people of our Union and this continent, but those of all nations as well can participate.’ And to carry out this intention the Congress provided two agents to do its will. The first is a commission{213} consisting of two Commissioners from each State and Territory in the United States, appointed by the President on the nomination of the Governors of the State and Territories respectively, and eight Commissioners-at-Large appointed by the President. The board so constituted was designated the World’s Columbian Commission. The duties of the Commission relate to exhibits and exhibitors, or, as stated in the act, ‘to prepare a classification of exhibits, determine the plan and scope of the Exposition, appoint all judges and examiners for the Exposition, award all premiums, if any, and generally have charge of all intercourse with exhibitors and representatives of foreign nations.’

“The other agent recognized by the Act of Congress is the World’s Columbian Exposition, a corporation organized under the laws of the State of Illinois. This corporation had to do mainly with ways and means, the erection of buildings, the maintenance, protection, and policing of the same, the granting of concessions, the collection and disbursements of all its revenues, and fixing the rules governing the Exposition. It is composed of upward of 28,000 stockholders, and is controlled by a board of forty-five directors. Those directors have been chosen from among the active business men of Chicago, and are every one of them men{214} who have made an honorable success of the pursuits which they have followed in finance, commerce, and manufactures, and are giving their time and their best energies to the success of the Exposition. Their names are many of them known wherever American commerce has been permitted to extend. The Board of Directors is divided into thirteen standing Committees having jurisdiction over the several departments of the commission, and the directory and all expenditures are directed and scrutinized by them as closely as is done in the private affairs of the best managed mercantile establishments.

“The jurisdiction of these two bodies, as to the details of the work, somewhat embarrassing at the outset, was settled by a compact between them, and they work together harmoniously and effectively. Under this compact fifteen grand departments were determined upon, the heads of which are appointed by the Director General, who is the executive officer of the commission, and all expenses, except the salary of the Director General, are paid by the World’s Columbian Exposition Company.”

In order that the City of Chicago might enjoy the honor conferred upon her by having the Exhibition held there, she was required to furnish an adequate site, acceptable to the National Commission, and $10,000,000 in money, which sum was, in the language of the Acts of Congress,{215} considered necessary and sufficient for the complete preparation for the Exhibition. This obligation the citizens of Chicago met promptly. A suitable site and $10,000,000 were provided, and, on evidence thereof, the President of the United States issued his proclamation, inviting the nations of the earth to participate in the Exhibition. The $10,000,000 was secured, first, by subscriptions to the capital stock of the corporation to the amount of more than $5,000,000, and a municipal appropriation to the City of Chicago of $5,000,000. People of all classes subscribed to the capital stock, from the richest millionaires to the poorest wage-earners, and the entire sum of $5,000,000 was subscribed in a very short time. An additional issue of stock was made, and it also was rapidly taken up, until the popular subscriptions aggregated nearly $8,000,000. This, with the municipal appropriation, placed about $13,000,000 in the treasury of the Exhibition. But, as the work went on, the original plans were enlarged in this direction and in that, until it was seen that the original estimate of $10,000,000 was absurdly inadequate. Accordingly a loan of $5,000,000 was asked from the general Government, to bring the total funds up to $18,000,000.

The projectors of the Exhibition estimate that the total receipts from admission tickets will amount to at least $7,000,000. This is not{216} deemed excessive, as will be appreciated from the fact that it is at the rate of less than $1,200,000 a month, $300,000 a week, or $50,000 a day, not including Sundays. The Exhibition is to be open at night as well as day, and in Chicago and within a radius of a few hours’ journey from it there are more than 2,000,000 people to draw from, not taking into account visitors from a distance. With $7,000,000 gate receipts, $2,000,000 from salvage, and $1,000,000 from leasing of privileges on the grounds, the income of the Exhibition would reach $10,000,000. From this it is proposed to repay the Government its $5,000,000, and to divide the remainder among the subscribers to the capital stock. The city’s appropriation of $5,000,000 is an absolute gift, and is not to be repaid.

But even these vast sums represent only a portion of the money that will be expended upon the Columbian Exhibition. The United States Government will spend about $2,000,000. The State of Illinois appropriates about $800,000; Pennsylvania, $350,000; Iowa and Ohio, $250,000 each, and the other States from that sum down to $100,000. The aggregate expenditures of the various States will, therefore, amount to nearly $6,000,000, or, with the National appropriation, nearly $8,000,000. Foreign nations will expend from $4,000,000 to $5,000,000. Vast sums will also be contributed by private enterprise,{217} so that it has been not unreasonably estimated that the total outlay upon the Exhibition will be somewhere between $35,000,000 and $40,000,000.

How much money will be expended in the city of Chicago, at the hotels and elsewhere, by visitors; how much will be paid for railroad transportation by visitors from other parts of the country, and how much money will be brought into and spent in the United States by visitors from abroad, are sums that can be dealt with only by the most vivid imagination. Some little idea of them may be obtained from the following facts: According to an official estimate made to the Department of State some years ago by a United States Consul in Germany, the annual amount of American money taken to Europe by Americans and spent there, for purposes of travel, pleasure, art, and education was $105,000,000. That was a number of years ago. The present annual average is probably more than $125,000,000, and it has been reckoned by competent judges that in 1889, owing to the Paris Exposition, it reached $200,000,000. It is reasonable to suppose that a very considerable return tide of wealth will, in 1893, set toward the American shore.

Some comparison with the World’s Fairs previously held in other countries may be of interest at this point. The acreage of the grounds of various Exhibitions, has been as follows:{218} London, 1851, 21½; Paris, 1867, 87; Vienna, 1873, 280; Philadelphia, 1876, 236; Paris, 1889, 173; and Chicago, 1893, 1,037. The number of square feet under the roofs of the buildings are thus stated: London, 1851, 700,000; Paris, 1867, 3,371,904; Philadelphia, 1876, 1,688,858; Paris, 1889, 1,000,000; and Chicago, 1893, 5,000,000. The number of exhibitors have been: London, 1851, 17,000; Paris, 1867, 52,000; Vienna, 1873, 42,000; Philadelphia, 1876, 30,864; and Paris, 1889, 55,000. The number of days on which the exhibitions were open, were: London, 1851, 144; Paris, 1867, 217; Vienna, 1873, 186; Philadelphia, 1876, 159; Paris, 1889, 183, and Chicago, 1893, 179 days. The number of admissions in London in 1851, were 6,039,195; Paris, 1867, 10,200,000; Vienna, 1873, 7,254,687; Philadelphia, 1876, 9,910,996, and Paris, 1889, 28,149,353. Finally the receipts in London, in 1851, were $1,780,000; Paris, 1867, $2,103,675; Philadelphia, 1876, $3,813,724, and Paris, 1889, $8,300,000.

A recent official statement of the dimensions of the various buildings, and the total cost of buildings and grounds, under the direct control of the Exposition management, together with the estimated operating expenses, is as follows:{219}

The site chosen for the Columbian Exhibition is a truly magnificent one. No World’s Fair ever had one surpassing if equalling it. It embraces Jackson Park and Washington Park, and the Midway Plaisance, a strip 600 feet wide connecting the two parks. Jackson Park, where nearly all of the buildings will be, is beautifully situated on the shore of Lake Michigan, having a lake frontage of two miles and an area of 586 acres. Washington Park contains 371 acres, and the Midway Plaisance, 80 acres. Upon{221} these parks previously to their selection for the World’s Fair site, $4,000,000 was spent in laying out the grounds and beautifying them. The Exhibition company will spend more than $1,000,000 additional for similar purposes. These parks are connected with the central portion of the city of Chicago and with the general park and boulevard system by more than 35 miles of boulevards from 100 to 300 feet in width. The Midway Plaisance is a popular driveway to the upper end of Jackson Park, and is a broad and spacious avenue richly embellished with trees and shrubs. The inclosed portion of it connected with the Exhibition grounds will run directly eastward and throughout its entire length will present some of the most picturesque and novel effects of the whole fair. There will be a “Street in Constantinople,” a “Street in Cairo,” and other reproductions of Old World scenes. There will be a most graphic reproduction of an American Indian camp, showing the red man in his natural state. Then there will be two acres devoted to the American Indian as he is to be seen under the paternal care of the government. Types of all the leading tribes will be portrayed in their native habitations and engaged in their characteristic industries. Thus the perspective along the Plaisance, whether viewed from the ground or from an elevation, will be a singularly attractive one. In the two parks hundreds of{222} thousands of trees and shrubs have been planted and transplanted, so that the great Exhibition will have such a setting of natural beauty as none of its predecessors ever enjoyed.

The engineers as well as the landscape gardeners and architects, have been set effectively to work. Twenty miles of water pipes have been laid to provide a supply of 64,000,000 gallons daily. For supplying power to machinery there are boilers and engines of 25,000 horse-power and for generating electricity, 18,000 horse-power; for driving small independent exhibits, 2,000 horse-power, for pumps 2,000 horse-power and for compressed air, 3,000 horse-power. The lighting of the grounds and buildings will require the use of 7,000 electric arc lights and 100,000 incandescent lamps. Preparations have been made for disposing of 6,000,000 gallons of sewage every 24 hours. Contracts for the work of construction have been let to the lowest competent bidders wherever found. They have thus been awarded in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston; in San Francisco, Seattle, and Omaha; in Minneapolis and Duluth; in Kansas City and St. Louis; in Leavenworth and Louisville; in Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh; in Birmingham, Alabama; in Wilmington, Delaware; in Plainfield, New Jersey; in Jackson, Michigan; and in Stamford, Connecticut. This is a slight indication of the national character{223} of the work. Its international character is also shown by the awarding of contracts in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Edinburgh, Florence, and Constantinople.

But with such characteristic energy is the work of construction now being pushed that the completed buildings may be spoken of in the present rather than in the future tense. A brief description of the most important of them will not come here amiss:

One of the finest structures on the Exhibition Grounds is the Agricultural Building, as befits the foremost agricultural nation on the globe. It stands near the shore of the lake, almost surrounded by the lagoons. The style of architecture is classic renaissance, and the building is 500 by 800 feet in ground area. It consists of a single story, with a cornice line 65 feet above the ground. Huge Corinthian pillars flank the main entrance, each 50 feet high and 5 feet in diameter. At each corner and from the centre of the building rise huge pavilions, that at the centre being 144 feet square. The four corner pavilions are connected by curtains, forming a continuous arcade around the top of the building. The main entrance leads through an opening 64 feet wide into a vestibule, and thence into the rotunda, 100 feet in diameter, surmounted by a glass dome 130 feet high. The corner pavilions are surmounted by domes 96 feet high.{224}

At the south side of the Agricultural Building is another vast structure, devoted principally to a Live Stock and Agricultural Assembly Hall. This is to be the common meeting-point for all persons interested in live stock and agricultural pursuits. This building contains a fine lecture-room, with a seating capacity of about 1,500, in which lectures will be delivered and conferences held on topics connected with live stock, agriculture, and allied industries.

The Forestry Building stands near the Agricultural Building, and is the most unique of all the Exhibition structures. Its ground area is 200 by 500 feet. On all four sides is a veranda, the roof of which is supported by a colonnade, each column of which consists of three tree-trunks, each 25 feet long. These trunks are in their natural state, with the bark undisturbed. They were contributed by the different States and Territories of the Union, and by various foreign countries, each furnishing specimens of its most characteristic trees. The walls of the building are covered with slabs of logs with the bark removed. The roof is thatched with bark. Within, the building is finished in a great variety of woods so treated as to show, to the best advantage, their graining, their colors, their susceptibility to polish, etc. It will contain a wonderful exhibition of forest products in general, doubtless the most complete ever seen{225}

in the world, including logs and sections of trees, worked lumber in the form of beams, planks, shingles, etc., dye-woods and barks, mosses, gums, resins, vegetable ivory, rattan, willow-ware, and wooden-ware generally, etc. There will also be a large exhibit of saw-mill and wood-working machinery, including four complete saw-mills, which will be seen in an annex attached to the Forestry Building.

Close by the Forestry Building is the Dairy Building, which will contain not only a complete exhibit of dairy products, but also a dairy school, in connection with which will be conducted a series of tests for determining the relative merits of different breeds of dairy cattle as producers of milk and butter. This structure stands near the lake shore and is 95 by 200 feet in area, and two stories high. On the first floor, besides office headquarters, there is a large room devoted to exhibits of butter, and further back an operating room, in which a model dairy will be conducted. On two sides of this room are seats for 400 spectators, to witness the operations of the model dairy. In a gallery about this room will be the exhibits of cheese.

The Horticultural Building stands immediately south of the entrance to Jackson Park from the Midway Plaisance, facing on the lagoon. Between it and the lagoon is a terrace devoted to out-door exhibits of flowers and{226} plants, including large tanks for various lilies and other aquatic plants. The building is 1,000 feet long and 250 feet wide, consisting of a central pavilion with two end pavilions, each of the latter connected with the central one by front and rear curtains, forming two interior courts, each 88 by 270 feet. These courts are planted with ornamental shrubs and flowers. Over the central pavilion rises a glass dome 187 feet in diameter, and 113 feet high, under which will be exhibited the tallest palms and tree ferns that can be procured. The building will be devoted to exhibition of flowers, plants, vines, seeds, horticultural implements, and all allied objects and industries.

The enormous mining industries of America, apart from those of the rest of the world, would call for much space for their proper accommodation. The Hall of Mines and Mining stands at the southern extremity of the western lagoon, and is 700 feet long by 350 wide. Its architecture is early Italian renaissance. Within it consists of a single story surrounded by galleries 60 feet wide. There is thus a huge interior space 630 feet long and 230 feet wide, with an extreme height of 100 feet at the centre and 40 feet at the sides. It is spanned by a steel cantilever roof, abundantly lighted with glass.

The Fine Arts Building is a noble specimen of classic Grecian architecture. Its area is 500{227} by 320 feet, divided within by nave and transepts 100 feet wide and 70 feet high, at the intersection of which is a dome 60 feet in diameter. The top of the dome is 125 feet above the ground, and is surmounted by a colossal statue representing a Winged Victory. The building is beautifully located in the northern part of the park, the south front facing the lagoon, from which it is separated by beautiful terraces, ornamented with balustrades. A huge flight of steps leads from the main entrance down to the water’s edge. The north front faces a wide lawn and a group of State buildings. The grounds about it are richly ornamented with groups of statues, and other artistic works.

The great development in late years of electrical science calls for a large building in which to display one of the most novel and brilliant of all the exhibits in the fair. The Electrical Building, 345 feet wide and 700 feet long, has its south front on the great Quadrangle, its north front on the lagoon, its east front toward the Manufactures Building, and its west front toward the Hall of Mines and Mining. Its plan comprises a longitudinal nave 115 feet wide and 114 feet high, with a central transept of the same dimensions. These have a pitched roof. The remainder of the building, filling the external angles of the nave and transept, is 62 feet high{228} with a flat roof. The outer walls are composed of a continuous series of Corinthian pilasters resting upon a stylobate, and supporting a massive entablature. At the centre of the north side is a pavilion flanked by two towers 195 feet high. At its centre is a huge semicircular window, above which, 102 feet from the ground, is an open gallery commanding a splendid view of the lake and park. At the south side is a vast niche 78 feet wide and 103 feet high, its opening framed by a semicircular arch. In the centre of this niche, upon a lofty pedestal, is a colossal statue of Franklin. The east and west central pavilions are composed of towers 168 feet high. At each of the four corners of the building is a pavilion with a tower 169 feet high. The building also bears 54 lofty masts, from which banners will be displayed by day and electric lamps at night.

The Fisheries Building consists of a large central structure with two smaller polygonal buildings connected with it on either end by arcades. The total length is 1,100 feet, and the width 200 feet. In the central portion will be the general fisheries exhibit; in one of the polygonal buildings the angling exhibit, and in the other the aquaria. The external architecture is Spanish Romanesque. The ingenuity of the architect has designed after fishes and other sea forms all the capitals, medallions, brackets,{229} cornices, and other ornamental details. The aquaria will contain about 140,000 gallons of water, 40,000 of it being salt. They will consist of a series of ten tanks, with glass fronts to afford an easy view of their contents.

The contribution of the United States Naval Department is one of the most novel ever seen at any World’s Fair. It is comprised in a structure which, to all outward appearance, is one of the newest and most powerful ships of war. This is, however, only an imitation battle-ship, composed of masonry and resting on piling in the lake. It has all the fittings that belong to an actual ship, such as guns, turrets, torpedo tubes, nets and booms, anchors, chain cables, davits, awnings, smoke-stacks, a military mast, etc., together with all appliances for working the same. Near the top of the military masts are shelters for sharpshooters in which are mounted rapid firing guns. The battery consists of four 13-inch breech loading rifles, eight 8-inch rifles, four 6-inch rifles, twenty 6-pounder rapid firing guns, six 1-pound rapid firing guns, two Gatling guns, and six torpedo tubes. These are all placed and mounted exactly as in a genuine battle-ship. All along the starboard side is a torpedo protection net. The entire structure is 348 feet long and 69 feet 3 inches wide. It will be manned during the Exhibition by officers and men detailed by the Navy Department who will{230} give boat, torpedo, and gun drills and maintain the discipline and mode of life to be observed on the real vessels of the Navy.

The Woman’s Building, which was fittingly designed by a woman, is architecturally one of the most attractive. It is encompassed by luxuriant shrubbery and beds of flowers with a background of stately forest trees, and faces the great lagoon. Between the building and the lagoon are two terraces ornamented with balustrades and crossed by splendid flights of steps. The principal façade of the building is 400 feet long and the depth of the building is 200 feet. The architecture is Italian renaissance. The main grouping consists of a centre pavilion, flanked at each end by corner pavilions, connected in the first story by open arcades in the curtains, forming a shaded promenade extending the whole length of the building. The structure throughout is two stories high, with a total elevation of 60 feet. At the centre is a fine rotunda, 65 by 70 feet, crowned with a richly ornamented skylight. The building contains a model hospital, a model kindergarten, a model kitchen, a library, refreshment rooms, a great assembly room, and other departments for displaying the varied industries in which women are especially interested.

It is impossible here to describe in detail the architectural features or the marvellous contents{231} of the great Machinery Hall. It is one of the most splendid structures on the grounds, measuring 850 by 500 feet in ground area, and standing at the extreme south end of the Park, just south of the Administration Building, and west from the Agricultural Building, from which it is separated by a lagoon. The general design of its interior is that of three enormous railroad train houses side by side, each spanned by trussed arches, and surrounded on all four sides by a gallery, 50 feet wide. The bulk of the machinery exhibited will be placed in this edifice and its large annex.

The building devoted to displays of Manufactures and Liberals Arts is the largest of all. Its ground area measures 1,687 by 787 feet, or nearly 31 acres. Within a gallery 50 feet wide extends around all the four sides, and projecting from this are 86 smaller galleries, 12 feet wide. These are reached from the main floor by 30 staircases, each 12 feet wide. An aisle 50 feet wide, called Columbia Avenue, extends from end to end of the building, and a transept of similar width crosses it at the centre. The main roof is of iron and glass, and its ridge pole is 150 feet from the ground. It covers an area 1,400 by 385 feet. The actual floor space of the building, including galleries, is about 40 acres. The general style of architecture is Corinthian, with almost endless arrays of columns and arches. There{232} are four great entrances, one in the centre of each façade. These have the appearance of triumphal arches, the central opening of each being 40 feet wide and 80 feet high. Above each is a great attic story, ornamented with sculptured eagles 18 feet high. At each corner of the building is a pavilion with huge arched entrances corresponding in design with the principal portals of the building. This stately edifice faces the lake, with only lawns and promenades between it and the water. North of it is the United States Government Building, south of it the harbor and injutting lagoon, and west of it the Electrical Building and the lagoon separating it from the great island.

The Transportation exhibit is one of the most interesting of the whole display and is housed in a huge Romanesque building, standing between the Horticultural and Mining Buildings. It faces the east and commands a fine view of the lagoon and great island. Its area measures 960 by 250 feet, besides a vast annex covering 9 acres more. The principal entrance to the building is through a huge arch, very richly decorated. Within the building is treated after the manner of a Roman Basilica, with broad nave and aisles. At the centre is a cupola rising 165 feet above the ground, and reached by eight elevators. The exhibits in this building and its annex will comprise everything pertaining to transportation, including all{233} manner of railroad engines and cars, steamboats and other vessels, coaches, cabs and carriage balloons and carrier pigeons, bicycles and baby carriages, cash conveyors for stores, pneumatic tubes, passenger and freight elevators, etc.

The United States Government Building stands near the lake shore, south of the main lagoon. Its architecture is classic, resembling the National Museum and other Government Buildings at Washington. It is made of iron, brick, and glass and measures 350 by 420 feet. At the centre is an octagonal dome, 120 feet in diameter and 150 feet high. The south half of the building is devoted to exhibits of the Post Office, Treasury, War, and Agricultural Departments. The north half is given up to the Interior Department, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Fisheries Commission. The State Department exhibit is between the rotunda and the east, and the Department of Justice between the rotunda and the west end. The rotunda itself will be kept clear of all exhibits.

The gem of all the buildings is that occupied by the Administration of the Exhibition. It stands at the west end of the great court, looking eastward, just in front of the railroad stations. It covers an area 260 feet square and consists of four pavilions, each 84 feet square, connected by a vast central dome 120 feet in diameter and 220 feet high, leaving at the centre of each façade{234} a recess of 82 feet wide within which are the grand entrance to the building. The general design is in the style of the French renaissance. The first story is Doric, of heroic proportions, and the second Ionic. The four great entrances are each 50 feet wide and 50 feet high, deeply recessed and covered by semicircular arches. The great dome, which will be one of the most striking features in the landscape of the Exhibition, is richly gilded externally. Within it is decorated with a profusion of sculpture and paintings.

The Illinois State Building is naturally by far the finest of all the structures erected by the various States of the Union. It stands on a high terrace in one of the choicest parts of Jackson Park, commanding a splendid view of the grounds. It is 450 feet long and 160 feet wide. At the north Memorial Hall forms a wing 50 by 75 feet. At the south is another wing, 75 by 123 feet, three stories high, containing the executive offices and two large public halls. Surmounting the central portion of the building is a fine dome 72 feet in diameter and 235 feet high. The entire edifice is constructed, almost exclusively, of wood, stone, brick, and steel produced by the State of Illinois.

No sketch of the Columbian Exhibition would be complete without some mention of its principal projectors and managers. The President{235} of the World’s Fair Columbian Commission is Thomas Wetherill Palmer, who was born at Detroit, Michigan, on June 25th, 1830. He is of New England descent and his parents were among the early settlers in Michigan. Mr. Palmer was educated at St. Clair College and the University of Michigan, and after his college days made a long pedestrian tour through Spain, thus becoming familiar with the country to which he was afterward sent as United States Minister. After some years of prosperous mercantile life in Detroit, and honorable participation in State politics he was elected United States Senator and served six years. In 1889 he was made Minister to Spain. At the first meeting of the World’s Fair Columbian Commission, held in Chicago on June 26th, 1890, he was unanimously elected President and at once entered upon the duties of the office.

Women and their work will be more conspicuously{236} represented at this Exhibition than at any of its predecessors, and there has therefore fittingly been formed a Board of Lady Managers. At its first session, on November 20th, 1890, Mrs. Potter Palmer, of Chicago, was unanimously elected President. She was born at Louisville, Kentucky, her maiden name being Bertha Honore, and she was educated at Louisville and Baltimore, Maryland. She was married in 1871 to Potter Palmer, one of the foremost business men of Chicago, and has since been one of the most prominent and most admired leaders of society in that city, besides being identified with innumerable benevolent and educational enterprises.

The Director-General of the Exhibition, its chief executive officer, upon whom the real responsibility for the conduct of the World’s Fair rests, is Col. George R. Davis, of Chicago. He{237} was born in Massachusetts in 1840, and was educated in the schools of that State. Early in the war of the Rebellion, he became a volunteer in the Union Army and served through the entire struggle with great distinction. In 1871 he retired from military service and entered business life in Chicago, where he was eminently successful. In 1878 he was elected to Congress and was re-elected in 1880 and 1882, and in the fall of 1886 he was elected Treasurer of Cook County, Illinois, which includes the city of Chicago.

The President of the Directory of the World’s Columbian Exhibition is W. T. Baker, a prominent commission merchant of Chicago, who was born in New York State in 1841. He has been elected and re-elected President of the Chicago Board of Trade.

Benjamin Butterworth, of Ohio, was chosen{238} Secretary of the World’s Columbian Exposition. He has for years been known as one of the most brilliant men in the National House of Representatives at Washington. During the debate in Congress on the question of an appropriation for the National Fair Commission he spoke strongly in favor of such an appropriation, and it was owing chiefly to his efforts that it was finally passed.

The Hon. John T. Dickinson, Secretary of the World’s Columbian Commission, was born in 1858, at Houston, Texas, and has for some years been a conspicuous lawyer, editor, and politician in that State.

The head of the Department of Publicity and Promotion of the Exhibition is Major Moses T. Handy, one of the best known newspaper men in the United States. He was born in Missouri in 1847, and was educated in Virginia, and has had a brilliant career as a journalist on the staffs{239} of the Richmond Dispatch, Richmond Inquirer, New York Tribune, Philadelphia Times, Philadelphia Press, and Philadelphia News.

The Exhibition is to be formally dedicated with appropriate ceremonies on October 12th, 1892, being the 400th anniversary of the landing of Columbus. It will not be opened to the public, however, for the general purposes of the Exhibition until May 1st, 1893, and it will continue open from that day until October 30th, 1893. During its progress there will be held on its grounds and in its buildings innumerable conventions and festivals of national and international interest, and it will doubtless be a more truly universal exhibition than any that has yet been held in the world. The spirit animating the projectors of the enterprise cannot perhaps be better expressed than they were by President Palmer in his eloquent address before the Columbian Commission in Chicago, on June 26th, 1890. “Education,” he said, “is the chief safeguard for the future; not education through books alone, but through the commingling of our people from East, West, North, and South, from farm and factory. Such great convocations as that of our projected fair are the schools wherein our people shall touch elbows, and the men and women from Maine and Texas, from Washington and South Carolina learn to realize that all are of one blood, speak the same language,{240} worship one God, and salute the same flag.

“If we are to remain a free people, if the States are to retain their autonomy, if we are to take a common pride in the name of American, if we are to avoid the catastrophe of former years Americans must commingle, be brought in contact, and acquire that mutual sympathy that is essential in a harmonious family. Isolated, independent travel may do this, but not to any such extent as will be accomplished by gatherings like this, where millions will concentrate to consult and compare the achievements of each other, and of those from across the sea. All must have observed the effect of the Centennial Exhibition in educating even what are called educated people, and in the impetus derived therefrom. It gave to all a larger outlook, it repressed egotism, quickened sympathies, and set us to thinking.

“It has been well said that the ‘Industrial Expositions are the mile-stones of progress, the measure of the dimensions of the productive activity of the human race. They cultivate taste, they bring nations closer to one another, and thus promote civilization, they awaken new wants and lead to an increased demand, they contribute to a taste for art, and thus encourage the genius of artists.’

the citizens of each State, foreign as well as domestic, will learn their inter-dependence upon each other. Many will come from selfish motives, possibly, but the social atmosphere they will here breathe; that undefinable influence which pervades and affects people who come together in masses with a common purpose, will broaden them and teach them that discussion and not violence is the proper way to adjust differences or promote objects—and thus prepare humanity for that good time so long coming.

“The world will come to us, by its representatives, if not en masse, and our own people should be drawn to this great school of the citizen by every device which can be imagined and afforded, while it remains for all connected with this management to see that no just expectation shall be disappointed.

“In other times there were convocations where the spirit of rivalry and comparison appeared, but in them few were invited to participate, and only a limited number of spectators could afford to attend. In those tournaments muscle was of more importance than mind. Those exhibitions taught how to destroy, and not how to create. The rivalry now is in methods to create and not to destroy, and the knights who participate are those of the active brain and cunning hand, whose spectators and judges are the better behaved and better educated citizens of to-day.{242}

“This Exposition—on a new site, in a new world—assumes greater dimensions than a market for merchandise or than figures of finance. We should make it a congress of the nations wherein agriculture, manufactures, and commerce should be the handmaids of ideas—where art should paint the allegory of Peace and chisel the statue Fraternity—where music should play a dirge to dead hastes and an epithalamium on the marriage of the nations.

“Our country has led the advance in peaceful arbitration. The Geneva Commission, the Fisheries Commission in the settlement of difficulties already existing, the Pan-American Congress has opened the way for the peaceful settlement of questions that may arise hereafter to the people of the hemisphere. I regard these great achievements of our capital government as more illustrious than any act of any government since our great Civil War.

“Let the Exposition be fruitful in profit, not only to the exhibitors, but to all comers, and that they shall carry away a higher conception of the duty of the citizen and the mission of the State. Our material power is very great, too great for us to act on any other plane than the highest. Our resources and capacity to meet our financial obligations are a wonder to the powers of the old world. It should be our aim to make our moral altitude on all public questions, national or international,{243} as unassailable as our monetary credit. Our bonds are higher in the markets of the world than any other—our opinions and acts should, relatively, hold as high a place.

“The first 400 years have passed—they have been illuminated by the heroic deeds of men and women, and shaded by crimes, national and individual. The descendants of the Puritans and Cavalier, of the Huguenot and the Catholic, of the slave and the Indian, together with those from other continents and the isles of the sea meet in peaceful rivalry where the forest fades away and the prairie expands.

“At last we are a nation with common inheritance. Lexington and Yorktown, Bunker Hill and Eutaw, Saratoga and Guildford Court House, New Orleans and Plattsburg, are our common glory.

“We have people to the north and south who can be linked to us with hooks of steel if we continue to retain their respect and confidence. I want no forcible addition to our territory, were it practicable. I want them to come as a bride comes to her husband—in love and confidence—and because they wish to link their fortunes with ours, to make their daily walk by our side. To bring about this consummation will be the work of time, of forbearance, of rigid observance of their rights, of due regard for their prejudices, of an unselfish desire for welfare—{244}wherein all the amenities of life shall be cultivated. We must enforce their respect by order at our own home, and show them that our composite civilization—wherein we select all that is good from abroad, and retain all that is good in our own, is calculated to make them also happier and greater.

“Should this occasion, this National Exposition, promote such a purpose as if we are rightly inspired, this meeting of all people would be more than a financial success—more than a vain commercial triumph. It would emphasize the new era, which I hope is dawning, and take the initiative in what may result in the federation of this hemisphere.”

Thus the Columbian Exhibition will nobly close the first four centuries of American history, and by the splendor of its display shed brilliant rays upon the unknown years and centuries to come. The future must be estimated from the past and the present. As the present is grander than the past, so, may we hope, will the future be grander than the present.

“At the time of the Centennial Exhibition we had 45,000,000 people; now our numbers reach the grand total of 64,000,000. Then we had thirty-seven States, but we have since added seven stars to our flag. Then the product of our farms{245} in cereals was about $2,200,000,000; now it is over $4,000,000,000. Then the output of our factories was about $5,000,000,000; now it is over $7,000,000,000. Such progress, such development, such advance, such accumulation of wheat and the opportunities for wealth—wealth in the broad sense, which opens new avenues for employment and fresh chances for independence and for homes—have characterized no other similar period of recorded time.

“The Columbian World’s Exposition will be international because it will hospitably welcome and entertain the people and the products of every nation in the world. It will give to them the fullest opportunity to teach us, and learn from us, and to open new avenues of trade with our markets, and discover materials which will be valuable in theirs. But its creation, its magnitude, its location, its architecture, and its striking and enduring features will be American. The city in which it is held, taking rank among the first cities in the world after an existence of only fifty years, is American. The great inland fresh-water sea, whose waves will dash against the shores of Jackson Park is American. The prairie, extending westward with its thousands of square miles of land, a half century ago a wilderness, but to-day gridironed with railroads, spanned with webs of electric wires, rich in prosperous farms, growing villages, ambitious{246} cities, and an energetic, educated, and progressive people is purely American.

“The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 celebrated the first hundred years of independence of the Republic of the United States. The Columbian Exhibition celebrates the discovery of a continent which has become the home of peoples of every race, the refuge for those persecuted on account of their devotion to civil and religious liberty, and the revolutionary factor in the affairs of this earth, a discovery which has accomplished more for humanity in its material, its intellectual, and its spiritual aspects than all other events since the advent of Christ.”{247}

CHAPTER VI.

SOCIETY’S FOUNDATION-STONE.

THERE ought to be a radical change in marriage customs in the United States, if we would avoid a terrible deterioration of social life.

In the early days of our country, when most of the inhabitants were representatives of the classes which have supplied populations for all new countries, marriage, as among the lower order of peasantry everywhere else in the world, and among the savages besides, was a mere mating of male and female. Women were brought over by shiploads to be disposed of, as wives, to the earlier Virginia planters; no stories have come down to us of cruelties or mismatings, yet the transactions were as plainly a matter of purchase and sale as any in the subsequent trade in black slaves. The rapid settlement of the country, the improvement in civilization, which has come through the multiplication of large villages and of cities, the general facilities for obtaining education, such as exist in no other country, have{248} made ours the land above all others in which generations may rise rapidly from the social position of their ancestors. Consequently there is no part of the world in which the marriage relation should be so closely guarded as here.

Does this seem over particular, in this land of freedom and era of emancipation from narrow views? Then look carefully over a list of the richest and most influential men who have come to the front within the past few years, particularly in the newer States; regard their marital relations—this will do no harm to any of them who are respectable—and consider the nature of the influence which these people exert upon society around them. The subject is not easy or pleasant to discuss, but, fortunately, there are not many people who cannot discuss it for themselves.

To expect to bring about the desired change by religious means, which are the first to suggest themselves either to the Christian or the philosopher, is impossible. However desirable it may be our political system has made it impossible for us as a body of people to go back to the customs of a period which was superior to ours in regard to the sanctity of marriage relations. However much these relations may be regarded as sacraments by some, and as specially sanctified by others, the making of the marriage relation a matter of mere civil contract has become so generally{249} a fact in law that it is impossible any longer to expect the majority of people to abide by the precedents and customs of different churches. The fact is, the churches don’t do it themselves. Divorced people who have no moral right to remarry are continually taking new partners and ministers are performing the ceremony.

The danger, aside from easy divorce, of which more anon, is in the probable change of social condition of the contracting parties. Men and women, mating in their very early years, as is the custom in all small villages and agricultural districts, frequently find themselves, by some happy accident, raised to a higher degree of financial standing than they had expected, and in the newer portions of the country, which contain a large majority of our population, such change of material condition carries social importance and influence with it. As would be the case anywhere else in the world, the change of condition shows itself differently in man and woman. The man of means quickly finds himself a man of mark among his fellows, and rapidly receives a vast amount of that valuable education which comes from what some philosopher has called “the attrition of minds.” His wife, relieved of the drudgery which is almost inseparable from poverty, does not follow her husband intellectually, unless such is her natural bent. She consequently devotes her leisure and improved material condition{250} to luxury and to show. From this difference of conditions in a family which was once united can be found the basis of many thousands of divorce suits.

You take exception to the expression “intellectual?” You are wrong. I know it is the fashion to regard literature, law, theology and other so-called learned professions as sole possessors of the world’s intellect, but this is all nonsense. It requires just as much intellect—intellect of just as high order—to put a railroad through a new country, or to invent a new threshing machine, or to manage a turbulent town-meeting, or to work a bill through the Legislature, as to write a poem, sermon, or novel, or to plead a case in court. Edison and Ericsson are as much men of intellect as Longfellow or Lowell; the difference in their lives is one of taste and detail—not of brain and intellectual endeavor. The position in which money places a man anywhere, except in the large cities—and it isn’t safe to except these much—compels him to use his intellect a great deal, and to sharpen it frequently. Unless his wife is his partner in every sense of the word, she is going to be left behind. That is not the worst of it; there are plenty of bright women lying in wait for the man who has plenty of money and a stupid wife.

Among those not yet married the same danger is ever apparent. Men have always been guided{251} more by impulse than reason in the selection of their mates, and to this day philosophers often marry fools. Consequently it is not surprising that young men of strong natural intelligence and great energy, who nevertheless have not yet received their fair start in life or developed their powers to the uttermost, select their brides through some mere fancy or caprice, which might never lead to bad results were their condition in life always to remain as it was in the beginning. But the reports of hundreds of divorce cases, which have amused the public to some extent, disgusted it still more, and horrified the thinking portion, show that alleged incompatibilities are generally the results of changes of condition, which have caused husband and wife to drift apart for reasons not at all related to the conjugal state.

It would be natural to suppose that the churches would give the subject special attention, the world’s morality being more dependent upon proper marriage than all other influences combined, religion itself not excepted. Well, the church does something in this direction. It does a great deal, but not one-thousandth part of what is necessary. A pastor of no matter what denomination gladly welcomes the opportunity, which, nevertheless, is seldom made by himself, to urge upon young people the seriousness of the marriage relation, the necessity of affection, constancy{252} and forbearance, and to show them to the best of his ability glowing pictures of the final results of conjugal faithfulness. But constant warnings, such as are given against a great many sins of less serious influence upon the world, are seldom heard in churches. Homilies on the subject of marriage are ordered by some denominations to be delivered once in three months. If they were heard once in three days their injunctions would be none too frequent for the necessities of the great mass of people who are most interested in the marriage relation, or, at least, most curious about it.

A happy wife, happy during and after half a lifetime spent in wedlock which did not escape the usual number of family troubles and sorrows, said once to me that the trouble with marriage was that conjugal impulse and conjugal sense were the scarcest faculties of the feminine nature. I would not dare quote this if it were not said by a woman instead of a man. Desiring at times to raise expectant brides to the highest sense of their coming responsibilities and privileges, but reluctant to put her own heart upon her sleeve, she tried to find something in print to give them by way of counsel and admonition, but she did not succeed. Novels about love and marriage can be found by the thousands. How many of them are of any value at all for purposes of instruction and forewarning? I leave the answer{253} to women who most read novels. From those who are mothers I have never been able to obtain the names of a half dozen.

There seems to be such a thing as inheritance by sex. Woman was for thousands of years the slave or the plaything of man, and she is unconsciously but terribly avenging herself for the wrongs done her by the ruder sex. The best she could hope for in earlier days, the best that many of her sex now dare hope for, is home, protection and kind treatment. The kindness may be that the man shows to his horse or his dog, perhaps to his friend, but the fact that the woman is to be legally his equal, the appreciation of this, is as rare as the resolve of the woman herself to make herself equal to the position.

What is the result? Why, girls, sweet girls, girls whom good men regard as only a little lower than the angels, often marry for causes which should not justify any but the commonest women in marrying at all. A girl whom all of us adore for her goodness, delicacy and sweetness, suddenly appalls us some day by accepting as her husband some gross fellow who has nothing but his pocket-book to recommend him. Were she to attach herself to him without marriage vows and ceremony, although perhaps with absolute honesty of devotion and singleness of purpose, the world would be horrified. Yet where is the difference as regards her own life? Many other{254} women know, if she does not, that no elaborateness of ceremony or solemnity can ever make a perfect marriage between a woman and a boor. Yet the old story of “Beauty and the Beast” is repeated every day a thousand times, except that the fairy touch which transformed the beast into a gentleman never occurs nowadays—except in novels.

There is prevalent a stupid notion, born of vulgar natures, too vulgar to understand that the Almighty never endowed humanity with any quality which had not a noble purpose, that it is not safe to let young people know or think anything about the realities of marriage. People allude at once to fixed passion as if the only passion possible to the marriage state were physical, and as if the companionship, sympathy, devotion, tenderness and continuity of a friendship solemnly pledged for life, a friendship of a character that children instinctively long for and youths desire more earnestly than all things else combined, never entered into the thoughts of young people. This is an insulting imputation upon your children and mine and of every other man’s beside.

Strong sense of duty may do much to correct the ruinous notion of young women regarding marriage, but it is not enough in itself. Women of strong sense of duty are probably commoner than men with the same desirable qualification.{255} Yet all of us know of men who have strayed from married mates who were pure, faithful, and dutiful—well, everything that a conscientious servant could be. But, if a man’s wife is no more to him than a first-class servant, she cannot prevent him yielding to temptation if he is so disposed. No man worthy of the name marries for the sake of obtaining a servant. It is far more convenient, besides infinitely cheaper, to obtain servants and housekeepers through the ordinary channels. Religion is the strongest influence for good that humanity knows, but religion alone cannot make a perfect wife of a well-meaning woman. There is no condition of life in which one virtue can be successfully substituted for another, and no amount of prayer and faith can make a good wife of a good woman without distinct conjugal impulse and purpose.

Neither can the maternal instinct, an honest impulse which of itself has made wives of many good women, who otherwise never would have married at all. To be the mother of a man’s children should and may entitle a woman to high respect, but many Mormons, who heartily respect their wives, do not hesitate to seek companionship of other women.

A woman needs the conjugal instinct to make a good wife of herself and a happy and faithful man of her husband. If it is not in her she should acquire it before giving her hand and life{256} to any man. The better the man, the more persistently should she hesitate before marrying without this requisite quality. The mother who does not inculcate the necessity of this impulse and quality is more remiss of her duty than if she left her children’s stockings undarned and their dinners uncooked.

As nearly all affection concerns itself with the relations of the sexes, and particularly with what is alleged to be love, it is commonly assumed that young women are sufficiently instructed through desultory reading on what is frequently called the grand passion. This appellation, “grand passion,” truly describes what the novelists usually give us as love, and is no more education or preparation of the young person contemplating marriage than the outside of a lot of school-books would be to a student desiring to graduate at a college. The novelist prudently ends his story where marriage begins. Up to that time everything is very plain sailing for both man and woman, but there, where the necessity for knowledge begins, the novelist discreetly ends his tale. How can he do more? Were he to make his story as it should be, in the light of human experience, it is doubtful whether young men and young women would read it at all.

Is all the blame of marriage failures to be attributed to women? By no means. The men are terribly faulty creatures, but it is the general{257}

opinion that, through some reason or collection of reasons, the conjugal instinct in man is more fully developed than in woman. Most of us know of men not very good, some of them not good at all, who become model husbands from the time of marriage. How many know of wild women, of careless girls, of whom the same could be said? Whether this is due to the invisible connection between the material and the spiritual; whether woman’s nature is kept in an embryonic state to the verge of deterioration by the modern custom of bringing up girls in-doors, denying them physical exercise, separating them from associations with their brothers, to say nothing of other members of the ruder sex; whether the increasing prosperity of the world, which makes it no longer necessary that the entire interests of the family, including some of the confidences between husband and wife, should be heard by children as once they were, the fact certainly is that the opinion which the young girl at the present day has of matrimony is one of the most appallingly inaccurate notions that can be encountered in conversation anywhere.

Then how is the desired change to be brought about? Only through public sentiment, in which the churches ought to take the lead. Marriage by accident, which is the common method, should be frowned upon and discouraged, no matter how romantic or “cunning” the preliminaries may{258} seem. Everybody knows that men never enter into a business partnership, which may be terminated at any time, without some sense of the fitness and compatibility of the contracting parties. Were they to fail in this respect, all of their friends would protest, and all of their acquaintances would make fun of them. Both parties would suffer in business reputation by such a blunder. It should be the same, though far more earnestly, regarding the life-partnership that is formed at a wedding. All relatives of the contracting parties have at least one interest at stake which justifies them in protesting against a blunder—I allude to family reputation.

Then aren’t young, tender, loving hearts to be allowed to choose for themselves? Nonsense! How much of love, in the true meaning of the word, is to be found in the great majority of marriages? If men, as a class, loved their sweethearts as much as they loved their dogs, there would be less ground for complaint; but men seldom tire of their dogs; who is there that does not know men who tire of their wives?

Am I harping again upon woman’s failure to remain dear to her husband? No; but I do say that the girl who makes the “best match,” as the saying is, and by marrying money marries above her station, is accepting more than she may afterward be able to live up to. Marriages should be between equals—persons who are competent to{259} support one another in any and every condition to which their material life can ever lead them.

As for men, the greatest sinners, though not the greatest sufferers, by marriage blunders, the man who marries except with the idea of making his wife his closest companion, should be regarded by all his acquaintances a deliberate scoundrel. A chance passion is no excuse for marriage; neither is a condescending pity. The man who marries merely for the sake of getting a permanent cook, housekeeper or plaything, is equally a scoundrel, and deserves more earnest and general execration than if he entered into familiar relations with a woman without the formality of marriage. The whole community should be on guard against man or woman who makes any less of marriage ties than the highest honor demands.

Some people whose conjugal relations are irregular, are irreproachable otherwise, do you say? Yes; but you can say as much about some thieves and forgers; except for their one fault they are good fellows. The moral influence upon the community of an unfaithful or careless husband or wife is worse than that of a common criminal, for there is no fixed passion in human nature that causes people’s minds to dwell upon theft or forgery or murder, and to make excuses for the persons who are guilty of them.{260}

CHAPTER VII.

THE DEMON OF DIVORCE.

IN one of the older theological periods, yet not so very old, there was a theory that Satan was a necessary part of the godhead. At present there seems to be a theory like unto it. It is that divorce is a necessary feature of the marriage system.

This notion is working fully as much mischief in morals and manners as Satan could do if he were part of Omnipotence.

Divorce is popular with certain classes, because married life—not marriage—is sometimes a failure, but the fault is not with the institution, but the individual. When Mrs. Mona Caird’s low-toned essay, “Is Marriage a Failure?” was being talked of a few months ago, Rev. David Swing, of Chicago, said the question should have been, “Is Good Sense a Failure?” Dr. Swing then struck at the root of the trouble by saying, “Ill comes not because men and women are married, but because they are fools.” Yet this is almost the only class for whom our divorce laws are made, and the more liberal the{261} laws, the more foolish the fools can afford to be.

Were divorce popular only for the sake of getting rid of undesirable partners it would be bad enough. Really it is a thousand times worse because its principal purpose is to help husband or wife to a new partner. This cause never is assigned in a petition for divorce; it doesn’t need to be; the community has learned to assume it, as a matter of course.

The case was well put a short time ago by Rabbi Silverman, at the great Temple Emanu-El, in New York, when he said, “The real cause for divorce is that there is nothing behind the civil contract that cements the marriage union and so welds it that nothing can tear it asunder. The real cause for divorce is that the marriage was a failure because it was not a marriage in fact, but merely in name. It was not a union of hearts for mutual happiness, but merely a partnership for vain pleasure and profit.” So long as we allow divorce to be easy, do we not encourage such marriages?

Any divorce except for the one cause recognized by the founder of Christianity is more injurious to society at large than any other crime, murder not excepted. Most crimes may have a good reflex influence by persuading men to be more watchful of their own impulses and lives, but the men or women who obtain divorces for any but{262} the gravest cause are sure, aside from the effect upon themselves, to increase the discontent of acquaintances whose married life is not all that had been hoped or wished.

One condition absolutely necessary to a pure and happy married life is the belief from the beginning that wedlock is to last as long as life itself. Without the stimulus of this tremendous sense of responsibility no person will unmake and remake himself so as to be the fit companion of another. Even with this impulse the effort often fails, as all of us know from observation of our own acquaintances. To admit the possibility of a cessation of relations or, worse still, a change of marital relations, is to relax effort and to become a selfish time-server—to become a confidence man instead of a partner.

The effect of a divorce suit upon the plaintiff is something which does not require theorizing. It can be ascertained by personal observation in almost any American court which grants divorces, for such cases are becoming more and more frequent. Whether the plaintiff be man or woman, whether the cause be drunkenness, or desertion, or incompatibility of temper, or insanity, or improvidence, or any of the various causes for which divorces are granted in some States, the plaintiff or complainant, if closely watched from day to day during the proceedings, will be seen, even by his dearest friends, to show marks of mental deterioration.{263} To tear two lives apart is a serious thing at best. Two friends bound only by ordinary ties have seldom separated without bad effects being visible upon both. Where the friendship is of a nature that has affected every portion of the life of each, as must have been the case even with wedded couples who have married at haste and have not even begun to repent at leisure, the effect is so marked that a person seeking divorce almost always loses some of his adherents, who previously had been his warmest friends, before the case is decided. Where love was, hatred is excited though it may not even have existed in the first place. The contest upon points of fact, upon recollections of difficulties and differences, the depressing literalness and materialism of proof such as is demanded in courts, the entire materialism, heartlessness, callousness, of all the proceedings, as they must be conducted under forms of law, are such as to debase any nature but the noblest—but noble natures do not seek divorce.

Bad as may be the condition of the complainant and the effect upon his own manner and conduct, it is not as deplorable as that visible upon the defendant. To face any direct charge in a court of law before witness, even if these be only officers of the law who are supposed to be impartial and judicial in their opinions and actions, the violation of privacy in regard to interests and relations,{264} which above all others—except perhaps those of a human being toward his God—are sacred even to the rudest minds, cannot help have its effect upon any nature but the strongest. The life of the defendant in a divorce suit, unless the complaint is utterly groundless and unfair, is from the first likely to be blasted. The more at fault the more the defendant must suffer, not only in his own self-respect, but in the regard of those about him. The curious gaze of the spectators, the intent look of the jurors, the disgust of the judge upon the bench, the flippancy of the witness on the stand, all have influences which would make many innocent people show signs of guilt. Upon any one really at fault all these influences must be still more depressing.

It is a common saying among lawyers that a woman divorced from her husband, on no matter how slight cause, is pretty sure to go to the bad thereafter. This is not necessarily an indication, so the lawyers say, that the woman is at fault, but that the mental strain to which she has been subjected, the strain upon her self-respect, is greater than poor humanity is equal to. What the subsequent results are upon her in society we all know. The present ruler of England has decided that no divorced woman, no matter in what country her divorce was obtained, shall ever appear at court. The rule seems cruel, but social results certainly appear to justify it.{265}

If there are children in the case, as usually there are—for somehow people without children seldom appear in the divorce courts—if there are children, the results upon them are worse than upon either the complainant or defendant. The principal good influence children are subject to is that of home. A disagreement between father and mother naturally interrupts this. An absolute break between the parents cannot fail to immediately have the worst possible effects upon the children. All children—except yours and mine—are at times brutes. There are no worse tale-tellers, no worse back-biters, no worse sayers of cruel things, than little children. It is not that they are unusually wicked or savage by nature, but insufficient training, lack of self-restraint, lack of adult sense of propriety, causes the tongue to say whatever is in the heart; and any adult who is obliged to keep a watch upon his own tongue should be able through sympathy to imagine the savagery which will be inflicted upon the children of divorced or divorcing people by their associates. However disobedient or irreverent children may be to their parents, the filial instinct exists in all of them, and a stab at either parent is felt most keenly by the children.

The ordinary consolations of a person wounded through the heart of another are denied the child. It has neither religion nor philosophy, nor even stoicism, to support it. It must suffer keenly,{266} and when it looks for consolation or desires consolation, where is it to go, when the two authors of its being, whom it has been taught to regard with equal respect, are at difference, and each is ready to accuse the other and belittle the other? The child of a divorced person is a marked object of curiosity in the society of children, whether in neighborhood parties or at school or Sunday-school, or even in church. The slightest quarrel brings the inevitable taunt that “your mother ran away from your father,” or “your father is in love with somebody else’s mother,” or “you haven’t any father now,” or something of the kind. Only a short time ago the newspapers of the United States recorded the suicide of a child of nine years, who had sought death to avoid the torment of being twitted with the separation of its parents.

Four lines of one of Pope’s poems, which probably are familiar to every one, indicate the general effect of divorced persons upon society:

The report that any person has obtained a divorce for any cause but the most serious generally sends a shudder through any American social circle which calls itself respectable. Even husbands and wives whose own marital experiences have{267} not been as joyous as was expected, are shocked by the legal disruption of a family—the spectacle of the wifeless husband whose wife really lives, or the woman without mate or protector whose husband nevertheless is not yet dead. But the force of the shock gradually weakens through frequent meetings with either party. The faults of the absent member are recalled, the good points of the alleged culprit are also recalled, and little by little excuses are made, until the change is regarded as coolly as the dissolution of a business copartnership. Unfortunately, too, the parties to a divorce are often brilliant members of the society in which they have moved, for the liveliest persons are generally the most discontented. The unrest of some phases of social life, the desire to be less confined at home, and to be more in general and congenial company, has a great deal to do with bringing about divorce, much though the guilty parties may deny it, and the persons who most frequently appear in the divorce courts are those who have been the most popular in their respective social sets.

This is bad enough, but it is only the beginning of the evil. What man has done man—or woman—may do, is as true of evil as of good. If Mr. A or Mrs. B has escaped a lot of apparent marital trouble by divorce, why should not Mr. and Mrs. C do likewise? They meant well—this is an admission which most people sooner or{268} later make in favor of everybody not absolutely fiendish—they failed. Why should they not try again? Then besides, they once more have their freedom, and the longing to be free is strong enough in the animal portion of any one’s nature to rise and trample down everything else, if it is at all encouraged. Little by little, yet very rapidly, contemplation of the problem of divorce discourages efforts towards self-improvement and the perfection of marital life. It is a benumber and deadener of every honorable conjugal impulse. To endeavor to decide between two evils is an experience which is demoralizing to any one; to decide between evil and good, when the good seems no more desirable than the evil, is a great deal worse. Yet this is the mental and moral condition of every one still married who contemplates divorce as a possible release from relations which are unsatisfactory, yet which might be made all that they should be.

The effect of association with divorced people—and there is no grade of society which does not contain them—is especially deplorable upon young people of marriageable age. The veriest heathen who has studied the influences of marriage will admit that the rising generation needs greater seriousness in contemplating wedlock. But what can be expected of any good-natured, well-meaning, thoughtless, careless, pleasure-loving, selfish young man or girl—and nearly{269} all young people are fairly described by these adjectives—who, while wondering whether or no to propose to, or accept, some attractive person of the opposite sex, is continually reminded by certain facts and incidents that if the bond becomes irksome it may be broken at will?

Some husbands and wives fight like cats and dogs, but in spite of it all, thank God, they still dearly love their children. What man or woman within the pale of decency would give a daughter in marriage with the thought that she might be put away by her husband at some time for some cause recognized by the courts of Utah, or Chicago, or Indiana, as sufficient for divorce? What parent will allow a son to mate with a girl who might possibly weary of him, release herself through legal measures and become the wife of some other man?

Physicians and spiritual directors agree that persistent thought upon the lower developments and interests of the marriage relation are extremely injurious to human character. What other phases of married life can be much dwelt upon by the mind of any one who thinks at all of the possibility of divorce for any cause but the most serious? The relationship thus regarded is so nearly that of the animals that love, so far as it has existed, must be brought down to the level of passion, and passion afterward to that of lust, and lust in turn down to appetite,{270} until beings, who once had hopes and aspirations and longings which, in spite of being unfortified by knowledge and principle, were noble in themselves, place themselves practically on the level of the beasts. According to managers and chaplains of great prisons there is hope of reform for almost any criminal whose offences were committed only through what are called the selfish instincts, by which is generally meant destructiveness and theft. But these same experts in crime are utterly hopeless of the reformation of any one whose sexual instincts have become depraved or even inverted. Yet it is difficult for any one to go through a divorce case, or to think steadily upon the possibility of divorce, without such a deterioration of sexual feeling, impulse, and aspiration. What hope can there be that such persons will occupy a respectable position in society in the future?

Can divorce be made less popular and easy? Yes. How? By a constitutional amendment, against which no respectable citizen not a lawyer would dare to vote, that the national government shall make a divorce law to replace those of the States. Tricks of, and concessions to divorce lawyers cannot be slipped through Congress as easily as through a State Legislature. Congress is up to a great many dirty jobs, but not of that kind.

Congress can’t make a stringent divorce law,{271} say some lawyers, but perhaps these gentlemen have their own reasons for saying so. Ex-Attorney-General Russell, of New York, who has looked into the subject closely, recently said such a constitutional amendment was possible, because more than two-thirds of the States already are inclined to limit divorce to the gravest cause only.

In the framing and adoption of such a constitutional amendment, Congress would have support from a source whose importance cannot be overestimated. I mean the Church; not any one denomination, but all—Mormons excepted. Bishop Foss, of the Methodist Church, said recently that his denomination could be counted upon to support such a movement; Bishop Whittaker, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, spoke in similar strain. The Catholic Church recognizes but one cause of divorce, and the Hebrews are equally rigid. Indeed, all creeds agree on this subject, and when the amendment comes up for vote or ratification the influence of such “Church Union” cannot be combatted—much less overcome.

The effect of a divorce law upon the community should be like that of a burned bridge to a lot of soldiers who have just crossed it. With no possibility of going back, there is every inducement to go ahead and make the best of whatever is before.{272}

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FARMER’S TROUBLES.

THE average American farmer is one of the best fellows in the world. He also is one of the most unfortunate.

He generally comes to his profession by accident. He may not have meant to become a farmer, but through death, or change of family, or some other circumstance entirely out of his own control, he comes in possession of the family estates, almost certainly encumbered with mortgages, and must continue the family business to secure a living for himself. From the first he is doomed to loneliness, which is one of the worst curses that humanity can suffer. He cannot afford to employ help, for if he had capital he would not be a farmer, and it requires capital to secure proper assistance in the conduct of a farm. He must do all of his work himself. If he cannot do it, it must remain undone. As a rule the farmers of the United States are awake long before daylight in the morning, and their work continues long after dark in the evening. The working hours of the day, which to the{273}

ordinary laborer are ten hours, and to more favored classes eight or seven, or even six, are to the farmer as a rule at least fourteen in twenty-four. His work is never done, any more than woman’s.

As a natural consequence he always is tired out. Custom and the demand of the markets restrict him generally to a single crop. Whether this be wheat, or corn, or oats, the seeding time is comparatively short. So is harvest time. The farm is larger than any one man or family can possibly manage, but American demand being at present only for raw materials, he has no choice. He must plant the staples from which foreign countries are willing to purchase the surplus for cash. Otherwise his condition would be worse than that of a slave. It is very hard for any one man to “break up” more than one acre of ground per day with a good team of horses. What, therefore, can the single-handed American farmer, who owns a hundred and sixty acres of ground, the customary “quarter section,” expect to do with his immense estate? To properly care for his family he should plant all of it; but, except in the case of wheat, if he were to plant it all, one-half to three-fourths of the crop would be wasted through lack of necessary cultivation. His horse is like himself, an overworked animal. In any section of the country the farmer is regarded safe who owns a pair of good horses. But{274} animals working twenty-six days per month from sunrise to sunset in the long days of summer cannot be kept up to their work by any amount of feeding or care. Sooner or later one or the other of a span of horses may break down, and then the farmer is helpless unless he has money in hand with which to purchase a substitute. Not ten farmers thus fortunate can be found in any contiguous hundred.

For the farmer is always poor. If it were otherwise he would not be a farmer. A very little experience on the farm and less observation of men about him show him that there is more money in mechanical or mercantile business, to say nothing of other callings, than his own. But he is handicapped from the start, no matter if he begins young, and while he still is a bachelor. When he has a family on his hands he is simply helpless so far as the possibility of change goes. The average farmer lives in hopes that in time his children, of whom he generally has many, will be of some assistance to him. Frequently his hopes are apparently fulfilled for a short time. But children are not as steady as grown people. They roam about in any time which they have to themselves. They reach the villages. They learn of a life which contains less toil and more comforts than that to which they are accustomed, and one by one they begin to intimate a desire for a change. It is utterly out of nature for the{275} farmer to disregard this desire. No matter how much he may love their company he knows in his inmost heart that a change from farm life to some sphere of activity which is less exacting would be a benefit to them physically and mentally, possibly morally also. His sons endeavor to become salesmen in stores, or to be clerks in lawyers’ offices, or solicitors for one business enterprise or another—anything to avoid the persistent and wearing drudgery of the farm. His daughters, in spite of the boasted independence of the farmer, and of his family, are very easily persuaded to go into any factory that there may be in the vicinity. It is not that they love home less, but they love companionship more, and, being like human beings everywhere else, they are keenly sensitive to the cheering influence of money—real cash received once a week instead of a possible balance to the family’s credit at the village store at the end of the year.

For the American farmer is generally at the mercy of the trader. The trader is as good as the average merchant, and is practically a merchant in all respects. He is generally the keeper of a general store at which the farmer during the year purchases everything which he may need for his family on an open account; with the understanding that when his crops are made they shall be turned over to the merchant, and a general balance struck. When there is{276} a good year the result may be in favor of the farmer, but good years are not the rule in the United States, even though the country is, as is said, the garden of the world. People who work and strain their energies to the uttermost require more in the way of ordinary creature comforts than those whose lives are more regular, and, though the farmer may discuss prices with great earnestness with the local merchant, the end is practically the same: he purchases whatever his family wants, so long as he can have it “charged.” He must purchase at the price stipulated by the merchant, for it is utterly impossible for him to look anywhere else for what he may need.

Some newspapers have made sensational complaints of the system of peonage to which some southern blacks or freedmen have been reduced by the storekeepers of plantations since slavery days, but there is no practical difference between their condition and that of the farmers the country over. “The borrower is servant to the lender,” and the man who has no money with which to purchase must submit to the exactions of whoever is willing to extend credit to him. Farmers’ notes are in the market in almost every county of the United States, and frequently those of which sell at the lowest prices are drawn by men of whose honesty of purpose and intention to pay no one has the slightest doubt. The only reason is that{277} the farmer’s absolute necessities have been in excess of the cash value of his farm products.

It is customary to speak of the farmer’s life as being the happiest and the safest occupation in the world. Nearly every one knows of some one successful farmer, and bases his judgment upon his knowledge of that solitary individual. But facts are stubborn things, and they have been proved by figures in the United States in a manner that should make those who are envious of the farmer think again.

According to the last census report the average valuation of the farm-lands of the United States, including buildings, was less than twenty dollars per acre. The average value of the products was less than eight dollars per acre. A quarter section of land, which is the ordinary size of an American farm in the States most devoted to agriculture, is a hundred and sixty acres. The reader may cipher out his own inferences with very little trouble, remembering that groceries, medicines, clothing, and everything else not produced by the farm costs quite as much in the rural districts as in the large cities, and generally a great deal more.

It has been said that the gold produced in the mining districts of the United States has cost far more in labor and physical loss than its value amounted to. The cost of the farm-land in the United States leaves the apparent waste on gold{278} in absolute insignificance. There are thousands of American farms to-day, probably hundreds of thousands, of which the land under the hammer would not bring as much money as the fences of those same farms have cost. The expense of clearing wooded land to fit it for agriculture has been far greater in almost every section of the country than the value of the land at the highest price prevailing would repay. The work of fencing and clearing was done by other generations, who got less from their farms than the present occupants are receiving.

One of the favorite arguments of men who urge younger men to go West and take a farm and grow up with the country is, that they will never lack for plenty to eat. This statement is entirely true. A man can always have plenty of food from his own estate if he cultivates it at all, or has any live stock. But one accompanying fact is, and this fact should be carefully considered—that frequently he has no place at which to market at a profit what he produces. He is so far from any market that what he does not eat he frequently is obliged to waste. Corn in the ear has been used during many winters for fuel in portions of the West, not because there was no wood to be had, but because there was no convenient place at which to market the corn, even at the bare expense of shelling and hauling to market, to say nothing of the previous cost of{279} planting, cultivation, and harvesting. Where a farmer is near a market, as in some eastern States, his table is no better set than that of the cheapest-paid mechanic in the city. He may have eighty acres of wheat, but if his family wishes to eat a cabbage they are obliged to go to some village market and purchase it; the farmer himself has not had time to plant and cultivate it. Summer boarders find fewer vegetables in the country than in the city.

The natural question occurs, why does not the farmer change his business as hundreds of thousands of mechanics and other men are doing every year? The answer is that it is impossible for him to do so. He cannot leave his farm without ruin to his family, for to neglect to plant and cultivate is to lose the credit upon which in ninety-nine cases in a hundred he must subsist. He cannot sell his farm at auction under the hammer as if it were a city house or a village residence, for purchasers of farms are the rarest of all purchasers of real-estate in the United States. This is not in accordance with European precedent or supposition, but it has been demonstrated in every State, and almost every county of the Union.

Does all this mean that farming will not pay? No. Farming will pay if backed by capital as well as practical knowledge. But it is almost impossible that the American farmer of the{280} present generation shall have any capital from any source whatever. Farming, when conducted intelligently, can be made profitable in any portion of the United States by a man with sufficient money in his pocket. Hiram Sibley, one of the most remarkable men whom the United States ever produced, was, at the time of his death, in 1888, managing four hundred different farms in nine different States of the Union, conducting all through correspondence, and he made it his boast, in which undoubtedly he was honest, that from each of these farms he secured a profit. But Sibley was a millionaire twenty times over, probably forty times. Whatever his farms needed they could have at once, and at the lowest market price, for he always had cash to pay for whatever he wanted. Nevertheless, this successful farmer, this millionaire, this thorough-going man of business, said, to the day of his death, that there was no more pitiable character in the United States than the farmer.

Nobody knows more about any one special business than the man who does not have to attend to its details, so there is a widespread opinion and assertion that the trouble with the farmer is that he is improvident. Men call attention to the expenses, apparently unnecessary, which he is continually making, particularly in the direction of comforts and even luxuries for his family. But what can the farmer do?{281} Everywhere east of the Mississippi river he is near a village. His children go to school with those of the village. They learn of comforts and luxuries to which they are not accustomed at home. They talk about them. They think about them. They long for them. The farmer himself is a human being. Any one who mistakes him for a boor makes a terrible blunder. Whenever it is in his power to make his home more comfortable he does so with a degree of earnestness that is almost terrible. He is anxious to save himself from the possible imputation, by his own children, of being a less careful provider than any one with whom his family are on intimate terms.

When there comes a year in which crops promise well, the farmer will buy anything that his family may want, if he can pay by giving his note of hand, to fall due after the yield of the year is sold. Makers of sewing-machines, organs, pianos, venders of furniture and bric-a-brac, agents of subscription-books, go first and most steadily to the farmers with their wares. The farmer will give his note, the vender will find some one who will discount it, and in the end it must be paid or compromised. If the crops go well everything is paid—perhaps. If not, the farmer is deeper than ever in the morass of debt. He has the consolation, apparently slight, though it is great to him, that his family{282} has enjoyed some of the benefits of villagers whom they have envied, and that some day, somehow, he will get even with the world for it. Perhaps this apparent extravagance of his will keep his family together longer than the family of his neighbor A or B or C, from which the boys have drifted into village stores and shops, and the girls into domestic service in the town, or perhaps into factories, all to avoid the hard work, but still more, the loneliness and barrenness of the average farmer’s home.

How helpless and unpromising is the present condition of the American farmer can best be imagined by a glance at the farming interest as it exists at present in the New England States. Here, within the lifetime of the present generation, mills have dotted the sides of every river and brook that has sufficient power to turn a wheel. Thousands of people are gathered closely together every few miles along these water-courses, working in mills and factories, and absolutely dependant upon the surrounding country for their food supplies. Yet in no other section of the country are there so many abandoned farms. A short time ago the twelve best farms in the State of Vermont were practically abandoned because it seemed impossible to their owners to work them without a loss, and a bill was introduced in the Legislature to exempt these particular farms—which, again I repeat, were the{283} best in the State—to exempt these farms from taxation so that some one might be persuaded to work them. It is not that the farmers have no market for what they produce, but that the finer farm products, or what in the larger cities are called the products of market-gardening, are of a nature so perishable that the profitable promise of a good soil may be speedily lost by the loss of the field itself after gathering.

Even near the large city of New York, where some men pay the interest on land worth five thousand dollars per acre for the sake of tilling it for market-gardening purposes, there are thousands of acres of ground utterly neglected year after year, as they have been for the past twenty years. It is possible that some of these might have been tilled to profit, but, with a steady demand for labor in the cities for which sure and frequent pay is guaranteed, the farmer’s sons and daughters left their home, and the father was left without assistance and without means to hire help. Even had he hired it, the results would have been the same—the balance on the wrong side at the end of the year.

Frequently the suggestion is made that the farmers should receive a bounty from the Government or from his State on special products, and this system, so far as individual States are concerned, is in partial operation. The farmer himself is distinctly of the opinion that, while legislation{284} provides special relief and assistance for nearly every other class in the industrial world, he should not be neglected. When he begins to demand such assistance, as he is now quite willing to do, there will be before the public a question of greater magnitude than any labor problem which has yet appeared. Special legislation has an unpopular sound, but the fact exists, as any follower of Congressional and legislative proceedings well knows.

The granger movement in the West was the initial of this attempt at improving the farmer’s condition. Like other great popular movements, it began with a sudden impulse, in which there was more earnestness than intelligence; yet any observer of the necessities of the farmer and the management of the railways knows that there was a substantial basis of sense to it. For a great many years the railways took the lion’s share of the farm’s yield, on the plea that it cost that proportion of the value of the crop to move corn or wheat or pork to market. Why it took so large an amount is well known in the case of many roads, which by watering their stock or subsidizing construction companies were capitalized at several times their value. In the future efforts of the farmer to secure recognition and proper compensation for his service, the factors of the problem may not be so distinct, but, unless something is done in the direction of legislative{285} assistance, the farms of the West must in time be deserted as largely as those of the eastern States, in which there are now thousands of farms in which not only the land, but the buildings, are without occupants, and are at the service of anyone who may be fool enough to occupy them—that is the farmer’s way of putting it.

It has frequently been suggested that the farmer could save largely from the financial results of his year’s work by participating in co-operative movements for the supply of stores and other necessities of his family on his farm. It may not be known to theorists that this suggestion has nothing new in it. It occurred to the farmer in hundreds of counties, and he endeavored to act upon it. But what can a man do in the way of purchasing from first hands, who has no capital with which to purchase? Farmers’ stores and farmers’ clubs were tried, to a large extent, forty or fifty years ago, all over the States which now are the most populous section of the Mississippi valley. Sometimes the effort resulted in the establishment of depots of supply for farmers alone, but a single year of bad crops, whether caused by drought or insect pests or overflows, or any other cause entirely outside of the control of the farmer, would cause the ruin of any establishment which chanced to be started with capital sufficient only for a little while.

As before stated, and as must be kept in mind{286} in each and in all considerations of the farmer’s lot and the farmer’s future, the agriculturist of the United States is almost always a man without capital, and a man whose constant struggle is to be equal by his output to his daily demands. When a farmer’s store failed, the deficiency had to be made up in cash, even if some of the backers had to sell their estates. Bankruptcy proceedings or “arrangements” with creditors were not easy. It is no exaggeration to say that it would be far easier, in most parts of the United States, to sell a white elephant or a million-dollar diamond than to turn a farm into cash at short notice, although the seller were willing to submit to a ruinous sacrifice. There are hundreds of thousands of farmers in the better and more fully settled States, who for years have had their estates in the market, and been willing and anxious to sell at a loss, yet have been utterly unable to find a purchaser, except among men of their own class, who had no money to pay in advance and who could simply offer a mortgage as security for future payment, and from which mortgage, in case of default on interest or principal, nothing could be obtained for a year or more, and even then only after proceedings most uncomfortable to institute and likely only to result in a terrible sacrifice to the creditor. The number of men who are “land poor” in the agricultural districts of the United States is almost beyond computation.{287} The man who has a farm of two or three hundred acres, nominally valued at a hundred dollars per acre, is supposed to be worth twenty or thirty thousand dollars and quite good for all his debts. The truth is that often he suffers more for lack of some small necessity for which cash must be paid than the city mechanic or laborer, who receives only a few dollars per week for his services.

Why doesn’t he borrow from a bank, giving a mortgage for security? Bless you, no bank that would lend to farmers, on the risks and time usually necessary, could continue in business.

The suggestion may be startling, but still it is practical, that it may yet be necessary, for the proper feeding of the community, that farming, like the policing of cities and the maintenance of an army and the conduct of the postal department, shall be done at the expense of the government. This seems to have been the method in Egypt in the days of Pharaoh and of Joseph, his steward, and America may yet have to revert to it. The Government will have either to manage the farms or assist the farmers; the people may choose which shall be done.{288}

CHAPTER IX.

THE RUM POWER.

MOST people have heard of the man who in a difficulty with a vicious bull finally got the animal by the tail. He could not hurt the brute, yet he did not dare to let go, so he was slung about most unmercifully, and at last accounts he was still being slung. The bull was in the wrong, the man in the right; still he had the animal only by the tail: instead of quieting or frightening the brute, he merely made him angry and was severely punished for his well-meant efforts.

The people of the United States in their contest with the rum power are in the position of the man with the bull. The rum power is in the wrong; the people are in the right, yet they have the monster only by the tail, so they only worry him and make misery for themselves.

It is not necessary to recount the harm done individuals and families by the liquor traffic. Almost every charge that the most rabid prohibitionist makes can be substantiated by a thousand men who sell liquor, aside from what total abstainers may know or believe or imagine.{289}

Bishop Warren, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, is not an excitable man, but he does not overstate the truth at all when he says: “Innumerable are the crimes of dolorous and accursed ages, and a fruitful source of them all is intemperance. It robs the body of its strength, the senses of their delicacy, the mind of its acuteness, the spirit of its life. It fires every passion, makes every base appetite the master of mind and will, leaves man an utter wreck. Of its work there are frightful statistics of robberies, arsons, murders, insanities, and curses to the third and fourth generations; but there are no statistics that can measure the heartbreaks of wives, hungers of children, disappointments of fond parents, and physical inheritance of deterioration and unconquerable appetite. It is the one great, stark, crying curse of our race and age. It is the personal foe of every parent, Sunday-school teacher, and preacher of righteousness.”

Miss Frances Willard, who is doing more successful temperance work than any man who is in the same field at present, states the case as earnestly as Bishop Warren, and with the extra force which figures always give—figures which no one contradicts because no one can. She says: “No man of the smallest intelligence can be ignorant of the fact that the saloon is to-day the chief destructive force in society; that the cumulative{290} testimony of judge, jury, and executive officers of the law declares that fifty per cent. of the idiocy and lunacy, eighty per cent. of the crimes, and ninety per cent. of the pauperism come from strong drink; that the saloon holds the balance of power in almost every city of ten thousand inhabitants; that it is the curse of workingmen and the sworn foe of home.”

It isn’t necessary, either, to call attention to the harm done free institutions at election times by the influence of rum. The late “Petroleum” Nasby, whom all of us knew for a lovable fellow and an able editor, once consumed a gallon of whiskey a day on the average. When he stopped drinking he wrote a series of temperance editorials, concluding with the words “Paralyze the rum power.” “Pete” had been in politics himself: he knew what the “power” of rum was, and how it was used.

The demoralizing effect of plenty of liquor is so well known that the first duty of a local campaign manager, no matter of which party, is to make proper arrangements with rum-shops for supplying free drinks for the purpose of changing voters’ views. The man who has opinions, no matter what they may be, is quite likely to modify them if asked when he is under the influence of a few drinks; and if his liquid consolation is to be supplied at the expense of some other man, the opinions of the two are likely to{291} be in entire accord before the transaction is concluded. Votes are easier purchased with rum than with money, no matter how large the sum that may be at the disposal of any political boss or ward committee. The public heard, a few years ago, to its horror, that an important State had been carried for the victorious party by a general distribution of new two-dollar bills. The truth is, as any one can learn by visiting the districts which then were close in the State alluded to, that a great deal more money than the entire number of two-dollar bills amounted to had previously been expended in rum-shops to which men who were willing to listen to what was called “a fair presentation of conflicting views” could be persuaded to come. Liquor is cheaper in the western States than in large cities. It is worse, too. A little of it goes a long way, and the man who will spend an evening in a rum-shop in a rural locality, is equal to any enormity, compared with which an apparent change of sentiment on political subjects is a mere trifle. As Channing used to say, “Rum outwits alike the teacher, the man of business, the patriot, and the legislator.”

Stepping aside from sentiment, and coming down to practical facts, Rev. Theodore Cuyler says that the liquor question “enters more immediately into the enrichment or the impoverishment of the national resources than any question{292} of tariff or currency. More money is touched by the drink traffic and the effects of the traffic than by any other trade known among men. The tax upon national resources levied by the bottle is far heavier than the combined taxes for every object of public well-being.”

Statistics of drink are undoubtedly more appalling than those of the most bloody and senseless war that the world ever knew. Some that are published are entirely untrustworthy; a head for reform does not always mean a head for figures; so figures are often made to lie, like tombstones. But the truth is bad enough. It is plain to any man who knows anything about current values that the price of a glass of poor beer will buy a pound of good bread, and the price of a glass of best whiskey will buy a pound of the best meat. Yet a great deal more money goes for beer and whiskey than for bread and meat.

Depraved appetite, answers the professional moralist. This is the veriest nonsense, although it is the commonest of the reasons that are given for inordinate indulgence in stimulants. An appetite, properly speaking, must be of a fixed nature. There is no drunkard alive who has a fixed appetite for liquor. The depraved appetite, so-called, is an occasional manifestation of the influence of long indulgence in alcoholic stimulants,{293} but it is no more possible to prolong it and make it a fixed condition of a man’s life than it is for a human being to make a voyage to the moon.

The first purpose of drink, to any one who is beginning to use liquor, is to “feel good,” and there is no denying that this is a general longing in every grade of humanity, from the highest to the lowest. Most human beings of the lower order are full of physical defects, all the way from those of the muscles and joints to those of the vital organs and nerves. If you ask the southern field-hand how he feels, you may safely bet that he will answer, “pooty porely,” and to get relief from his aches and pains he resorts to liquor, whenever he can get it. The Indian is another specimen of the man who wants to “feel good.” He is supposed to be physically a splendid child of nature, but he seldom is without some serious functional disorder or inherited curse of the flesh which makes him the willing slave of any stimulant he can get. A great host of unfortunates who have come to the United States from other lands are practically in the same condition; starved, abused, and underfed for generations and centuries, a glass of rum is to them like the touch of an angel, and a jugful is the equivalent of a heavenly host. There is no sense in talking about “depraved appetites” when you contemplate these people, from whom come the mass of the rumseller’s customers.{294}

The second strong impulse to drink is like unto the first; it is to “brace up.” Human nature is either a dreadfully weak machine, or one which the majority persist in overworking. Men’s energies, spurred by their necessities, too often outrun their strength; then stimulation will be resorted to if it is at hand. It is quite true to say there is more strength, and stimulus too, in a loaf of bread or pound of meat than in a glass of liquor; but the food works slowly; the liquor works quickly. There are drinkers almost innumerable among the better classes, who use liquor medicinally, as literally as other men use quinine. Their liquor habit never is an indulgence; they would as lieve take some other stimulant were it equally convenient and effective, but they do not know of any; neither do their doctors.

When men feel the need of stimulation, yet dread the use of alcohol, they will search for help somewhere else. With the nominal decay of the rum influence in the United States some years ago, began the enormous sale of bitters, anodynes, narcotics, stimulants, nerve foods, brain foods, and other nostrums of similar purpose, with which the advertising columns of a great many newspapers, including most of the religious weeklies, were filled, as some are at the present time. In the city of New York, where there is one rum shop to every thirty families, it is not a common{295} experience to smell opium or chloral in the breath of the man next you in church or street-car or business resort. But in the State of Maine, which has had more experience with close prohibition than all the other States of the Union combined, it is hard to go into any community of men without being made cognizant of the fact that resort to these stimulants is quite common in that virtuous State. I do not say this in contempt of Maine’s effort to get rid of liquor. The prohibition movement in Maine has done incalculable good in some directions. There is no other State in the Union in which young men have never been invited into bar-rooms, and do not know what public opportunity for drinking is.

Do I mean to say that alcoholic stimulants are absolute necessities of life? No; I do not, but—don’t underrate the meaning of that little word—but the majority of our voters do, and majorities rule in this country. There is altogether too much indulgence and drunkenness—too much yielding to the desire to “feel good.” The use of alcohol in large quantities has a bad effect upon the character and conduct of anyone; the temperance men will give you all the dreadful statistics you like as to the part rum plays in filling our jails, poorhouses and insane asylums, and God himself would shudder to tell us how many homes it ruins—how many widows and orphans it makes. On a division of the subject{296} which is out of the province of statisticians, physicians will admit that more sexual immorality comes from rum than all other causes combined. There is no fear of overstating the aggregate bad effects of over-indulgence in liquor—it is beyond the power of words or figures to overstate it.

Having admitted that the curse of rum in the United States is quite as great as any moralist or prohibitionist has ever asserted, it follows that some remedy is necessary, and the question naturally occurs, What shall it be?

The almost unanimous reply will be, Control the demon by law. The majority of law-abiding citizens are quite willing to admit that this should be done, but the question arises and becomes more urgent year by year, What shall the law be? Shall it be in the direction of prohibition? The experience of several States, Maine no less than others, is overwhelmingly to the effect that prohibition does not prohibit. Perhaps not as much liquor is consumed in Maine as if there were open bars in every town. But anyone who is fond of a glass knows by experience that it is quite as easy to gratify his tastes in the State of Maine as it is in the city of New York. Worse still, the stranger going from another State to Maine, if he has any acquaintances at all in the prohibition State, is so importuned by hospitable souls, who wish to make{297} him feel entirely at home, and as comfortable as he might be if he were in his native city or village, and has set before him liquors in such variety, that he generally goes to bed with a heavier head and awakes in the morning with a harder headache than if he had been in the worst rum-cursed portion of the country.

Have I heard the arguments in favor of prohibition? Well, can anyone help having heard them? No project ever placed before the public has been more earnestly and persistently advocated. But where is the sense of demanding a law against which you know the majority of the people will be arrayed? Suppose during momentary enthusiasm a State carries a prohibition law by a small majority, some drinking men themselves being constrained by their neighbors to vote for the law and against their own inclinations, how is the law to be maintained? By public opinion. Who creates public opinion? The majority. But the majority drink, and will continue to do so for some generations to come, unless all signs fail. Every State has a law against bribery and corruption of voters. Is bribery or corruption less common than before the law passed? No; it becomes worse year by year. Why? Because public opinion dare not and will not support the law. Personal interest, expressed in party feeling, winks at its violation—not all the while, but{298} merely every time there is anything to be gained by it.

Both sides of the prohibition question were well put in a recent conversation between a prominent prohibitionist and Bishop Foss, of the Methodist Church, who has worked industriously for years to decrease the rum influence, but believes restriction is the only means practical. “Bishop,” said the prohibitionist, “if you saw a rattlesnake in the street, biting people and destroying human lives, would you kill it, or try to pen it up?” The bishop replied, “If I had been chasing it up and down the street for thirty years, trying to kill it but never succeeding in doing anything but make it uglier, I would consider myself lucky if I had a chance to pen it up.”

Then should law take the form of restriction? Yes; but immediately the law-makers discover in the words of some satirist of the past generation, that a great many men can be found in favor of a certain provision in law, who are against its enforcement by any method that is suggested in the form of a bill before any Legislature or Congress. A restrictive measure immediately affects a great many business interests. Moralists would like the sale of liquor restricted. Well, so would a great many liquor dealers. If a poll were taken of the wholesale dealers in liquors in the United States, regardless of section{299} or environment, it would be overwhelmingly in favor of limiting the number of rum-shops, and compelling the sale of only the better class of goods. Perhaps the wholesale dealers are not philanthropists, but their work is in the direction of philanthrophy in the respect that they make more money on old and well-refined liquors, and consequently would prefer that nothing else should be sold.

Restriction can be attained in no other way except through license laws, and upon these at once the entire public agree to disagree. A license law that would regulate the traffic in a large city would be utterly destructive of the entire retail liquor interests of the country districts. Consequently the country dealers, through their representatives in Legislatures, protest strongly against any such enactment as the famous Scott bill, which was of such great service in restricting the liquor trade in the State of Ohio. The license exacted from a retailer in a large city would consume the entire profit of a country dealer, even if he were the only one in his town. City prices and country prices are different. It may be also stated upon undoubted authority, for the information of prohibitionists and other gentlemen who have never looked into the practical details of the liquor trade for themselves, that the countryman’s drink compares with that of{300} the city man about as a full bath-tub does to a basin of water.

After restriction, and lowest, though not least important, among the list of reformatory measures, comes the principle of regulation. Can the liquor trade be regulated? Should it be regulated in the interest of morality and the public safety? Yes. We regulate everything else—absolutely everything—that affects the safety of humanity. We stipulate by law or special license where dynamite factories shall be located, how dynamite shall be transported, where it shall be stored, how it shall be sold, and every other stage of the trade in this dangerous yet useful article of commerce. We regulate the trade in gunpowder; there are very few States in which any minor is allowed to purchase any quantity of gunpowder or any other explosive. We regulate the sales of poisonous medicines, no matter how useful they may be, forbidding the chemist to sell them except on a physician’s order, and we make him keep them specially classified, and label every package or bottle or box of them which he sells, and to record the name of the purchaser. We regulate even the speed of horses in large cities; although every man is supposed to be able to take his ease and pleasure with a horse and carriage if he can afford them or hire them, in all large communities it is required that he shall not drive at more than{301} a certain pace. None of these regulations are regarded as abridgements of personal liberty. All of them are admitted to be necessary precautions for the good of the entire community.

Unfortunately the principal opposition to regulation, which is the easiest and most practicable method of reducing the dangers of the rum traffic, comes not from rum-drinkers themselves, but from those who never consume any liquor—I mean the prohibitionists. Their principle seems to be the old, big-hearted, but utterly impracticable one of “a whole loaf or none.” In a number of recent local and State elections, in which the regulation of the liquor traffic was concerned, the prohibitionists usually voted with the advocates of free rum, not that they love liquor or liquor dealers, but that unless they could have their own way they preferred to leave things as they were before. Their purpose, as nearly as it can be discovered, was that the more fearful condition society could be brought to by the free use of rum, the sooner would society protest strongly against it and take “the only true view,” this being the prohibitionist’s modest way of putting his own opinion. The Russian Nihilists, whom everybody detests, work on the same principle;—things can’t be better until they have first been as bad as they can.

The present influence of rum in the United States upon morals, manners, society, and politics,{302} must be charged upon those who have labored most earnestly to lessen it. Again I allude to the prohibitionists. They have discouraged every practical effort to abate the evils of the use of liquor. They have regarded all restrictive or regulative measures about as Mr. Garrison once regarded the Constitution of the United States in its relations to slavery—as a compact with the devil. The time must come when it will be not only unfashionable but indecorous and degrading for any man to use liquor, except in cases of sickness; but when that time comes the people will owe no thanks whatever to those who have talked most against the influence of rum. Once more, and for the last time, I allude to the prohibitionists.{303}

CHAPTER X.

NATIONAL DEFENCE.

IF Heaven helps only those who help themselves the United States will be deplorably helpless the first time they fall into difficulty with any foreign power.

Ever since the late civil war ended the general of the army has annually given us earnest and intelligent warning as to the incomplete state of our fortifications, and the inability of our artillery for offensive and defensive operations against the improved armaments with which other nations have amply supplied themselves. The admiral of the navy has made similar reports. For a little while this looked like unnecessary precaution or what a distinguished Congressman once called old woman’s fussiness. Hadn’t we just triumphed over the largest armies that had been brought into the field, except by ourselves, in half a century? Hadn’t we organized a navy out of nothing, armed it splendidly, and done with it whatever was desirable that the naval power of the country should attempt? To be sure, our forts were few, but so were our harbors. The construction{304} of some of the harbor forts in the United States was admired by the engineers of all the other civilized powers only thirty years ago, and the public knew of it. To afterward be told that these splendid and expensive structures were of no use, that they were inadequate, that two or three guns on a second or third-rate ship of some second or third-rate naval power could knock them to pieces would have been humiliating had it not been enraging.

Attempts were made from time to time, in the earlier years following the close of the war, to keep our military and naval establishment in fine condition. We had admirable staff departments, and large “plants” for the manufacture of almost everything required in ordnance and ammunition. We had the nucleus of a navy and army from which a peace establishment unequalled by any on the face of the earth might have been selected. But we let it all go. No such spectacle as the disbandment and disappearance of the great armies of the North and South was ever before seen, and historians have glorified in this. Soldiers, however, whose opinions we may yet be called upon to respect, regarded the spectacle in entirely a different light. We had once before been caught—by England—napping in a most unexpected way, said these old fellows; we paid dearly for our neglect; but now we are repeating exactly the same blunder. Excellent men who{305}

were willing to remain in the service were allowed to go, material of every kind was disposed of at auction as rapidly as possible, and nothing was provided to take its place. The numerical force of the standing army was reduced more and more until even the Indians held us in contempt. Indian massacres on the border have frequently been charged to the rascality or duplicity of the white men. Undoubtedly the Indians have had a great many provocations, but, so far as restraint through fear is concerned, they have been subjected to very little of this very necessary discipline. Large bands of armed Indians have been able to keep brave but small detachments of United States troops within small camps or forts, to isolate them and taunt them for days in succession, to steal cattle, murder settlers, desolate the country, all because they had contempt for an army which was so small that it never could oppose more than a handful to any Indian raid which might suddenly be made.

Just look at some of the warnings we have had during recent years. In his last report as commander of the army (1887), General Sheridan said: “The condition of our sea-coast defences has continued to deteriorate during the year, and the majority of them, both as regards the material of which they are built, their location and present armament, would prove of but little real service in time of foreign war.”{306}

General Sheridan further advised that we should adopt some modern magazine rifle for our soldiers, as all foreign nations had refitted their armies with these guns.

General Sheridan further said: “I am strongly in favor of the general movement extending all possible aid to the National Guard of the different States, as they constitute a body of troops that in any great emergency would form an important part of our military force.”

Before Sheridan, General Sherman made clear, vigorous, sensible protests every year against our neglect to maintain good defences, but nothing came of it in the way of improvement. After Sheridan’s death, General Schofield, the ranking officer of the army, continued the good work; only two or three months ago General Schofield said in his report that the new guns we are making will make an increase in the number of artillerists indispensable, and he urged the formation of two new regiments at once. Does any one expect to see them?

Admiral Porter has been hammering away valiantly for years at Congressional thick-heads for the neglect of the navy, but it was not until the late Samuel J. Tilden gave his own party a blast on the subject did we begin to construct a{307} navy. Even now there is persistent halting; Congress, regarding the navy, is like the girl of a certain class regarding her suitors—so anxious to get the very best that she is in danger of not getting any.

Both political parties seem agreed on the reduction of the regular army to the smallest possible numerical force. While the Republicans were in power some officers of the army used to hope for a change of administration, and consequently change of party at the head of affairs so that the army might “have a show.” But when the Democrats came in with President Cleveland, there was no perceptible difference, except that there was more trouble than before in obtaining ammunition with which to salute the flag morning and evening. The army, small as its maximum strength is according to law, has not been full in years, and there are grave doubts among some of the higher officers of the army as to whether it can be made full.

Why? Because men desert—run away at a rate unheard of in the army of any other nation. General Schofield, in his annual report, says there were two thousand four hundred and thirty-six desertions last year—more than ten per cent. of the entire army! Fear of punishment seems to have no effect, and General Schofield felt obliged to recommend that a full half of each enlisted man’s pay shall be retained until the end{308} of the period of enlistment. Isn’t this a humiliating state of affairs for the army of the freest nation in the world?

There must be serious reason for this anomalous condition of the military force. Our soldiers are better fed, better clothed, and far better paid than those of any other country. An American soldier receives, outside of his allowance for rations and clothing, more money in a day than the British soldier can show to his credit in a week. His term of enlistment is shorter and his possibilities of duty are pleasanter, or should seem so to men of intelligence. Yet to enlist, which is the first suggestion that presents itself to a man out of work in a foreign country, seems to be the least popular in the United States.

Undoubtedly one reason is, that among the inducements to enlist, we are entirely lacking in anything that approaches the glory of war. Our only enemies are Indians, the meanest, most sneaking, most treacherous foemen that any civilized nation is fighting at the present time, and there is less glory in capturing one of them or a great many of them than in any taking of prisoners in ordinary war. The soldiers of other countries see at least a great deal of the pomp of war, if very little of its circumstance. Showy dresses, frequent parades, numerous occasions of display, encampment in the vicinity of large cities and towns, freedom to go about and spend money{309} among civilized people, are all inducements to men to join and remain in a foreign army at the present time.

But what inducement is offered the American soldier? He is put in a camp of instruction as soon as he enlists, and sent to the border as soon as he is fit for service. The border is a delightful country, according to dime novels, but no sober man with his eyes open finds it anything but dull. It is a sparsely settled country, uninteresting to every one but the speculator and hunter. The soldier has nothing to speculate with, and is very seldom allowed to go hunting. He is kept within narrow bounds, sees almost no one but his own officers and comrades, has nothing but camp duty to do, except when on long scouts outside camp lines, or, still more unpleasant, when detailed for police, gardening, or other laborious duties within the camp. It naturally occurs to the American soldier that if he is to work eight hours a day in building houses or stables, or digging wells, or throwing up embankments, or ploughing the soil, or hoeing garden crops for the benefit of the post, that he might as well be doing the same sort of work in the States at a dollar and a half a day, and have his freedom between sunset and sunrise.

Except that police precautions against the Indians are still necessary, the only excuse that any one, except the military officer, seems inclined to{310} discover for the existence of our army at all, is that we should have a nucleus of a military establishment in case of necessity. But what is the nucleus worth? Two thousand officers, among whom undoubtedly are a number of the best educated soldiers in the world, constitute nearly all of our military force upon whom we could confidently rely in case of trouble. The enlisted man, taking him as an average character, is practically worthless at a time when the enlargement of the army may suddenly become necessary. In France or Germany officers may at any time be selected from the ranks. Of course the systems of the two countries differ greatly from ours. Conscription and the requirement that every adult man shall serve a portion of his time in the army, makes a soldier of every one.

But is it not rather significant that the better class of men, to whom we would have to look for additional officers in case of the necessity of suddenly making a large army, are seldom found among our own regulars? Some of the reasons for this deplorable deficiency of valuable material have already been suggested. There is nothing to induce a man to enter military life, and the enlisted man is too frequently used as a common laborer.

But beside this, there is a greater grievance. It is that ours is as aristocratic an army as any{311} in the world, and that the distance of the officers from the enlisted men is so great as to be simply immeasurable. Volunteers used to grumble that some of their officers “put on airs.” It is scarcely fair to say that regular officers put on airs, but it certainly is true that the enlisted man, as a rule, is generally treated by his superiors as a being of an entirely different order. Few men rise from the ranks. Some men now high up on regimental rosters used to be private soldiers, and a few instances of the kind occur nowadays, but the vacancies are too few to attract good men to the ranks. Let any one live at a military post a little while and explain, if he can, how any one with sufficient self-respect to be fit for military rank of any kind can bring himself to enlist in the United States army at all.

All this could be changed, without increasing the numerical strength of the army, by an entire change of method which would not create any friction, disorganization or reorganization, but which nevertheless would encourage a better class of young men to enlist—a change which, indeed, would secure some of the very best in the country. An army so small as ours should be in the highest sense a military school. There is nothing to prevent it. There is no army which has more leisure at its disposal or officers more competent to act as instructors. No army in the world has a greater percentage of highly educated{312} officers. No country can show a larger proportion of well-educated, restless, unemployed, aspiring young men. There is no engineering party for a railroad, a mine, a river improvement association, a drainage company or anything else requiring applied mathematical and mechanical skill but can secure a large staff of intelligent young men at an expense not exceeding that of the ordinary soldier. These men generally work harder and fare worse, regarding personal comfort, than the meanest of soldiers, yet they are not only entirely satisfied with their chance, but elbow each other fiercely in their desire to get it.

Suppose that instead of selecting men merely for their physical quality and their supposed capacity for obedience, the standard of admission to the ranks of the army should be as high as that of admission to West Point. Suppose the Government were to assure the people that the recruits would be treated as well as the cadets at the military or naval academy; in an instant the army might have its choice from a hundred thousand intelligent, well-born, well-bred, honorable, aspiring young men. As already said, there is no trouble in getting any quantity of men of this class to go out under the control of engineers for hard and unpleasant duty. The inducement, beside the financial compensation, is that they will be enabled to fit themselves, at least to some extent,{313} for the class of work which their superiors are already engaged in. They are close observers, earnest students, intelligent assistants, and the beginning of many an engineer, now prominent, has been in just such parties.

The United States army might as well be one great school of engineering and military tactics. It is well known that the mere company drill, which is almost all the drill the American soldier is ever subjected to, thanks to the distribution of the force in such a way that scarcely any regiment has been together within a single period of enlistment of any soldier in the army, requires very little time. It is no harder to become proficient in than that of the militia of the various States and cities. Indeed, with company drills once a week, almost any militia regiment or company can present a finer appearance upon parade than any but two or three “show” companies of regulars. The remainder of military life consists in guard duty, the details of camp duty and of applied engineering, which each man can learn as rapidly by experience as an equal number of assistants in a construction party anywhere else. It is known well enough at the West that the construction parties of railways contain, beside a mass of common laborers, a great many intelligent young fellows who have put on flannel shirts and cow-hide boots, have taken pick and shovel and wheelbarrow, not so much for the wages that{314} are paid them as for what they are learning of the art of railroad building. If such men can put up with the treatment ordinarily accorded the section hands of a railway constructing party, they certainly would be satisfied with the manners of officers of the United States army.

But—and here is an important distinction—no railway boss, however much of a tyrant he may be, would dare to order one of his hands to cook his supper or wait at his table or groom his horse or do any other service of the quality commonly known as menial, but the American soldier in the regular army is sometimes obliged to regard such demands as a matter of course.

A plan was suggested a short time ago, by a military officer of experience, by which the army might be reorganized on this basis without any additional expense and without any possibility of friction. Several years ago Major Sumner, of the regular army, himself a son of an old regular of national fame, suggested a similar plan regarding a single branch of the service—the cavalry. His plan was to select from among the floating population of wild boys of the different cities a number of the more intelligent, and organize from them a single regiment of cavalry, to be carefully trained and specially educated, the more promising and deserving recruits to be placed in the line of promotion, and all to be encouraged to look to possible rank, responsibility,{315} and position as part of the compensation for the necessary restraint to which they might be subjected. This restraint could by no possibility be more severe and continuous than that of West Point.

All that has been said about the army applies with equal force to the navy. When the apprentice system was formulated there was hope expressed by hundreds of officers who had served in one branch or other of the service during the late civil war, that it might afford a stepping-stone to ambitious young men who wished to adopt a seafaring career, but were unable to obtain admission to the naval academy, or in any other way to gain a sufficient education in seamanship and gunnery, which are the two principal requirements of the American naval officer. But if any number of naval apprentices have yet reached officers’ uniforms or see before them any hope of such advancement, the country has not heard of it; neither has the naval department. The boys are treated kindly, well fed, well clothed, educated to a certain extent and trained by officers carefully selected for their intelligence, forbearance, patience, and tact. But has any one seen any recommendation either to the naval department or to members of Congress that the apprentice ships should be schools for naval officers?

The consequence is that in case of our becoming{316} suddenly involved in war with any power we would be in as bad a position as we were when the civil war broke out. At that time there was a sudden demand for twenty times as many trained military officers as the regular army and the graduating class at West Point could supply, and the demand became greater every month during the time in which our first million of men were enlisted. The scarcity of available material was so deplorable that many lieutenants of regulars were called to the command of volunteer regiments. Did any one think to go to the ranks of the regular army for officers? At that time there were in the army thousands of sergeants, any one of whom, had he been in the militia in a corresponding position, would have been considered amply fit to organize, drill, and otherwise care for a company of a hundred men. But there were no such demands, and had they been made the proper men would not have been forthcoming to any extent. The lack was not of military skill, but of the many other qualities which go to the make-up of a soldier. And first among these is a high degree of self-respect—a quality which has never been nourished among enlisted men of the regular army of the United States.

The real trouble is lack of proper public spirit. During a recent chat with Admiral Porter, that{317} fine old sea-dog and fighter bemoaned the lack of any proper public sense of caution.

“Write!” exclaimed the veteran, in his energetic way; “I’ve almost written my finger-nails off, and do not believe it has done a particle of good. Nothing would please me more than to be able to infuse a patriotic spirit into the American people—make them feel that they have a flag and need a navy to protect it. I wish we had some of the energy and patriotism exhibited by our forefathers, for, according to present indications, we will one day be humiliated by some fifth-rate naval power which will come to our shores and teach us a lesson. No reason exists why we should be exempt from war, for we are easily excited, and, like the school-boy, dare any one to knock the chip from our shoulder, though not able to fight.”

CHAPTER XI.

LABOR.

LABORING men—this is their own title for themselves—do not work any harder than the remainder of their fellow-beings. But those who come under this title as it is generally understood have some grievances that must be removed before several million men can transverse the long distance between dissatisfaction and comfort.

The Labor party, so-called, has made an ass of itself a great many times, but its blunders cannot change the fact that many of its complaints have a great deal of ground to stand on. The farmer who shoots the man that stole his horses may be a murderer, but that does not alter the fact that his horses, upon whose work depend his crops, his family’s fate, and the ownership of his farm, have been stolen. So, when a railroad strike prevents thousands of travellers not owning any railway stock, not having any part or influence in railway management, from reaching their destination, the strikers may be absolute scoundrels in their disregard of the rights of their fellow-men;{319} nevertheless it is entirely true that their own wages may have been ground down to starvation basis, and consequently the men have a right to complain.

Labor is sure to be imposed upon just as much as the laboring class will endure the imposition. The poorer the man the more necessary is it that he shall work in order to live. This being so, he is sure sooner or later to encounter somebody who will take advantage of him. No man need be a scoundrel in order to drive a sharp bargain if he gets the chance. To drive a sharp bargain is something that all of us rather pride ourselves upon. Probably the laboring man would do it himself if he got the opportunity. Nevertheless, the purpose and aim of the laboring man should be to be so “fixed” that no one can catch him at a disadvantage.

Labor—that is, organized labor, must be in ceaseless conflict with the spirit of competition that prevails among employers. In every manufacturing industry that admits of competition, all the way from making door-mats to building houses and railroads, men try by underbidding one another to get business. The energy of a new country is always in excess of its capital and also of its demand. This is very encouraging so far as the outlook for energy goes, but it does work a great many wrongs and unpleasantnesses. In business it does not take long to reach bedrock{320} as to cost of raw material. After that, the strain of competition must come entirely upon labor, and, if labor does not resist, it must starve.

Consequently the workingman must fight, and fight continually, to keep from being reduced to slavery in one form or other. The word slavery has a dreadful sound, but there are ways of muffling it so that the slave himself does not always see himself in a true light.

It is only a short time ago that New England was thrown into a fervor of patriotic indignation by the spectacle presented in one town of a native bringing a laborer in chains to the market-place to be sold. The owner regarded himself as entirely in the right, and explained his position very distinctly. He had obtained his vassal on a contract that a certain amount of labor would be given for a specified sum of money. The sum was small; nevertheless it was paid and accepted, and the man afterward imagined that he could escape from the terms of his contract. Consequently the employer, or purchaser, as he seemed to consider himself, put chains upon the fellow, and as literally brought him for sale as any slave was ever offered in any slave-mart in the world. The beholders rose in their wrath, dragged both men before the court, the slave was freed and the owner was fined.

in which the slave-dealer, taking advantage of an ignorant, unthinking man, was found out. How many thousands of similar cases exist in the United States at the present time of which the public know nothing? All newspaper men at the principal sea-ports know that people come to this country by the thousand on contracts to do a certain amount of labor for specified prices. The prices may be below the cost of living, nevertheless the contracts hold good in all courts of law, and the men are obliged to do their duty. We are sorry for them, but, according to the practice of all countries, man seems to be made for the law and not the law for man.

Do I really mean to say that slavery is possible in the United States? Why, such a question is behind the times, for slavery practically exists. What else but slavery can you call the condition of some of the coal-miners, tanners and factory hands of the United States? Men with their wives and families go to a small town which practically belongs to their employer. They live in houses owned by their employer, buy their household supplies at stores owned by their employer, take their pay in checks, tickets or orders signed by their employer, and get the remainder of their pay when their employer is ready. Suppose they wish to improve their condition and go away; how can they move at all unless they have saved some money, the saving of{322} which, by a peculiarity well understood in all such localities, is simply impossible?

The method is practically that of South America. In some of our sister republics the laboring men who are on a plantation are called a consistado. Men are obtained, in the first place, by a small advance of money, and are told that they can obtain additional sums at such times as they may need them, provided the money is already due them for work done. But these laborers are improvident. When they wish to spend money, the employer good-naturedly—so it is supposed—allows them to draw slightly in advance, and by the laws of the country the laborer can never leave until his indebtedness to the employer is paid.

In some of the South American republics there are consistados, from which no man can escape to work elsewhere without being claimed and returned by forms very similar to those which prevailed in the United States under the old fugitive slave law in slavery times. If a workman on the plantation of Don Tomas recovers from a feast-day celebration in a state of mind which leads him to run away and go to the plantation of Don Jorge, he is missed at roll-call, his absence is reported to his employer, and straightway a lot of notes are sent out to the owners of surrounding estates notifying them of the runaway and requesting them to return him{323} to his employer, who will pay the expenses incurred by the return. The request is always honored, because what neighbor knows when some member of his own consistado may disappear in the same manner, and be, of course, slightly in debt to his employer?

The same state of affairs prevails practically in a number of our mining and manufacturing regions. Men who are paid only once a month or once in two months get advances from their employers in the shape of orders for family supplies upon stores in the vicinity, stores probably owned by the employer. So long as the purchaser is in debt he may be stopped if he attempts to leave the country, and if he goes alone, as usually he must, his family is unable to follow him, and, still more, unable to retain a home and get food, for the roof which shelters them belongs also to the employer, as does the only store which gives credit. Only a few years ago I met in the State of New York a tanner, who was said to be one of the ablest men in his business, who told me that he had been seven years in the town and house in which I found him, trying to work out his indebtedness to his employer, so as to take his family somewhere else where they could have better society and where his children could have better facilities for education, but in spite of all efforts at economy he was still in debt to his employer. As the said{324} employer fixed the rate of wages, the tanner could not possibly see how his condition would ever be otherwise.

This apparently anomalous feature of our civilization may appear to the reader to be accidental and exceptional, but it is not. In the larger cities the same conditions prevail under different forms. There are a great many shops in New York and other cities where men and women, principally the latter, work at starvation wages, and are so assisted by the pretended kindness of their employers that they always are in debt and cannot possibly leave without fear of suit and possibly arrest. The so-called slave marts of certain districts of the city of New York on Sundays are not overdrawn pictures, as the reading public may imagine them. There are hundreds of thousands of people so absolutely bound to their present employers that their only method of escape seems to be death.

Public sentiment does not countenance slavery, though, and public sentiment is all-powerful? The will of the people is the law of the land? Yes, yes; that sounds very well. There is a good deal of truth in it, too, but the truth is all on one side. Public sentiment does not concern itself with anything which is not brought closely to its attention. Public sentiment in the United States did not countenance African slavery long after the Constitution was adopted, nevertheless{325} the institution grew and flourished until it almost destroyed the nation. Public sentiment did not approve of any of the abuses of the colored race which individual overseers and owners might be mean enough to indulge in. Nevertheless, as in everything else, the public acted upon the old-fashioned principle of not interfering in other people’s business. The general public does not handle the slaves, still less does the general public manage the employers. It hears once in a while of abuses and cruelties, and thinks these are outrageous, but they are not its affair. Each man must look out for himself, Heaven helps those who help themselves, etcetera, etcetera. There are a good many ways of getting rid of moral responsibility in this world, and nearly everybody is mean enough to take advantage of them when the moral responsibility does not affect any one of his own family, much less his own pocket-book.

But can the condition of labor be improved? Yes, if labor is entirely in earnest about it. Labor’s principal need is brains. I don’t mean they must increase their own brains; but in their conflicts with employers the laboring men should be led, or their interests should be managed, by men who know both sides of the question. Are there such men in the ranks of the laborers? It appears not; if there were, such men would not be laborers at all. How many{326} men there are whose hearts have been strongly stirred up by the wrongs endured by labor in the United States, who have longed for an opportunity to assist the working classes with their sympathy and counsel, but who have been repelled again and again by the utterly unbusinesslike and senseless methods of the very men whom they desired to help! During the strikes in the cotton mills of New England, a few years ago, it was remarked by a millionaire, a man of leisure, who desired to assist the operatives with his time, his money and his legal ability, that could he have such a faculty of working as the laboring class had of blundering he would be the greatest man who ever lived.

There is no objection, on the part of Americans, to workingmen enjoying all proper rights and protection under the law; the only trouble is in unwise methods of procedure. President Cleveland puts the whole matter in a nutshell as follows:

“Under our form of government the value of labor as an element of national prosperity should be distinctly recognized, and the welfare of the laboring man should be regarded as especially entitled to legislative care. In a country which offers to all its citizens the highest attainment of social and political distinction, its workingmen cannot justly or safely be considered as irrevocably consigned to the limits of a class and{327} entitled to no attention and allowed no protest against neglect. The laboring man, bearing in his hand an indispensable contribution to our growth and progress, may well insist, with manly courage and as a right, upon the same recognition from those who make our laws as is accorded to any other citizen having a valuable interest in charge; and his reasonable demands should be met in such a spirit of appreciation and fairness as to induce a contented and patriotic co-operation in the achievement of a grand national destiny. While the real interests of labor are not promoted by a resort to threats and violent manifestations, and while those who, under the pretexts of an advocacy of the claims of labor, wantonly attack the rights of capital, and for selfish purposes or the love of disorder sow seeds of violence and discontent, should neither be encouraged nor conciliated, all legislation on the subject should be calmly and deliberately undertaken, with no purpose of satisfying unreasonable demands or gaining partisan advantage.”

The press of the United States, as a rule, is on the side of abused men of any class, not excepting laboring men who strike against oppression of any kind or against reduced compensation, but often and often within a very few years, within the memory of men who are still young, the press has been obliged by common-sense{328} alone to condemn strikes of men whose condition they regarded as deplorable, but whose immediate purpose was absolutely indefensible. A business man in a position which he does not entirely understand seeks the counsel of a lawyer or of some one who fully comprehends the case in all its bearings. The laboring man seems to think such a course unnecessary, and he suffers the consequences.

Will any unions, guilds, Knights of Labor, help the workingmen to maintain such rights as they have and gain such as they need? Yes, if there are brains behind them. “In union is strength,” but strength may be just as effective in a bad sense as a good one, and the more of it there is the worse will be the showing made if the cause is not just. If workingmen were divine, all their past efforts would have done a great deal of good, but they are only human, and there is no getting away from the fact that when any lot of men first are brought together through sense of wrong, their first thought is revenge, which never meets the public’s views. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” is an expression from authority so high that we are obliged to treat it with respect, and it is certain that during the present generation a desire for vengeance by any one or for any reason whatever has never called forth the sympathy of the public.

Human nature is a very weak article. No one{329} knows this better than the wise man who has a great deal of it himself; so in all quarrels he assumes that there is a great deal of right on both sides and that reconciliation or adjustment must be brought about by conciliation and compromise. The laboring man on strike is not given to either conciliation or compromise. Whatever his wrongs may be, he has first endured them for a long time and when he has begun to complain of them his complaints have never been made directly, but simply are voiced among his fellows, then increased in volume. The argument on the other side has never been brought to his attention, and consequently he regards himself as the only person wronged and almost as the only person who has any interest in the matter in any way. It never occurs to him that his employer, like nineteen in twenty of all the employers of the United States, is doing his business on the basis of general confidence and borrowed capital, and that what might seem fair to the employer as an individual may be utterly impossible when demanded of the employer as a business man.

In all the manufacturing centres outside of large cities the majority of employers do business with money borrowed from savings banks which have obtained this money by deposits from the laboring men themselves. An injury done to one is an injury to all. If labor goes back upon the employer, the banks also must go{330} back upon him, and after this nothing but a very wise head can prevent injury to both. When upon such a complication there comes the spirit of revenge nothing but a special interposition of Providence can prevent injury for everybody.

One fact that should be constantly borne in mind is that trades unions, no matter what their titular name may be, can never be sure of support from men in the same trade who have most sense and influence. Protests, whether with words or blows, are always made by the discontented, but the better class of workingmen are not of that variety. They either have better sense than their associates or make better use of the sense they have, so they are in positions with which they are fairly contented. Men who have been “inside” of a great many labor movements are no less vigorous in their denunciation of the stupidity of labor than the most earnest or most hypocritical employer that can be named. They say or they have said to newspaper men whose business it has been to interrogate them closely that “if” so-and-so had happened the results would have been different, but A or B or C, each of whom had a number of personal retainers, thought differently, and consequently the trouble was prolonged. Had certain other men in the business belonged to the unions or guilds, or whatever associations made the formal protest against wages or hours, or whatever the grievances{331} might have been, there would have been a chance for compromise, or arbitration, or some other method which would have brought the conflicting interests into harmony. But these men “stayed out,” as the saying is. They were men who saw opportunities for something better before them; consequently they did not intend to compromise their own position and future prospects by taking part in a fight.

Neither can the unions depend upon support from mechanics and laborers outside of the large cities and of villages and manufacturing centres which are tributary to large cities. The carpenter, mason and blacksmith in a country town feels insulted when asked to organize or join a trade union. He does not feel the need of any protection. He, with good right, considers himself as smart as any merchant or manufacturer or capitalist in his vicinity, and he not only does not see the need of any protection against such people, but he thinks himself smart enough to overcome them all in matters pertaining to his own business. Experience proves that he is right. Such a man slowly but surely becomes a proprietor, and thus an employer himself. The idea that he is always to be a laborer is extremely distasteful to him, and even if he were convinced that such were to be the fact he would not admit it. He would feel that he would be voluntarily taking a lower level by making any such admission.{332} The natural consequences may be seen by any man who has done business in a number of small towns or villages. The journeyman workman in any trade whom he knew ten or fifteen years ago, in his beginning, is probably now an employer and a proprietor himself. Quite possibly he has “struck a big thing,” as the saying goes, and has money of his own; his sons are being as well educated, his daughters as well dressed, as those of any of his neighbors, and his wife associates on terms of equality with the families of the judge or Congressman or whosoever else the local magnate may be.

So far as labor expects to be helped by public sympathy, which is always on the side of the unfortunate and oppressed, it cuts its own throat by denying the right of any laborer to work at cheaper rates than his fellows. The abuses and indignities to which so-called scabs have been subjected have alienated public “sympathy” from labor movements to a most deplorable degree. No American, not even the millionaire, is free from the influence of competition in business, and the richest are sometimes those who suffer the most. Competition has been defined as the soul of business, and no one yet has been skilful enough to deny or modify the assertion. If employers may compete, if clerks, teachers, salesmen, lawyers, physicians, even clergymen, may compete with one another for wages or compensation{333} for their services, why may not workmen? Can any one imagine a body of clerks, or dry-goods salesmen, or lawyers, forming a clique and standing at dark corners with clubs and pistols to bully other men of their own profession into demanding certain wages on penalty of refusing to do any business at all?

“What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.” If one class of labor is entitled to take as much wages as it may get for such services as it can render, why should not another be entitled to the same privilege? It is very true that the laboring man often sees in free competition by a large number of men a possibility that he shall be deprived of his daily occupation. But whose fault is it? That of the competitor who will work for lower wages or of the man who has done so little outside of his daily stint of labor as to be obliged to stand in the position of a highwayman or bully toward any one who can do the same work for less money than he?

Can law improve the condition of the workingman? Can you make a horse drink by leading him to the water? The law has done a great deal for the laborers in many States by giving workmen a first lien upon the results of their work, but it cannot and will not compel the community to regard the inefficient worker as the equal of the good one, which is the point upon which some trade unions and other organizations{334} seem inclined to insist. Neither will it allow the employee to manage his employer’s business. The employer may occasionally find himself “in a hole,” where he must submit to any terms imposed by the only men who can help him out, but if he gets in any such fix a second time his bankers and customers will go back upon him, after which he will have no use for labor at any price.

Then can law and public opinion do more for laboring men than they have done? Not much. Why? Because law and public opinion are made by people who themselves work—people who stand just as much of this world’s wear and tear as any common dirt-shoveller, to say nothing of any skilled mechanic. There are more farmers than mechanical laborers, and they work longer hours, but how often do they demand help of the law or the public? In every large city there are tens of thousands of clerks who are driven to their utmost capacity at less compensation per day than the common laborer receives. It has been ascertained that a bank-teller who recently defaulted was getting a salary of only six dollars per week, though he had long hours and great responsibility.

Does not underpaid labor, outside the mechanical arts, frequently improve its own condition? Yes, frequently. Well, how? Why, by using its brains. If it were to insist that its whole{335} duty was done when its daily work was over the public would laugh at it. The clerk, the teacher, the salesman considers it his duty to continually improve himself in order to be fit for such opportunities as may arise. A man in any one of these positions who would spend his non-working hours in indulgence, carelessness, or, worse still, at the nearest beer-shop, would be considered by his employers as unfit for confidence and by his associates as a man who never would rise. If such men are so badly paid, so severely worked, yet are skilful enough to rise from the low financial level upon which their work places them, why should not the laboring class in general rise in the same manner? It is useless to say they cannot, because thousands upon thousands have done it for years. It has already been said that the mechanics of a few years ago are the employers and managers of to-day. A great deal more might be said in the same direction, for there are great mills, factories and industries of the United States to-day controlled by men who were merely poor laborers at day wages a few years ago. The question is not one of a class or of an industry; it is entirely one of individual manhood, and the man stands or falls by himself. The more he depends upon an association or his fellow-men the less strength there is in himself to resist injury or to make his way upward.{336}

CHAPTER XII.

SELF-HELP FOR LABOR.

IF the laboring man doesn’t want to be in a state of slavery, he must refrain from putting himself into chains.

He is a good deal like the rest of us; he always blames somebody else for his condition. He won’t be able to get out of trouble until he lays most of the blame on himself.

If a man feels obliged to enter into business relations with a lion he does not begin by putting his head into the animal’s mouth. If a workingman begins life with the belief, which seems prevalent now, that all employers will enslave a man if they can, he should not allow himself to be in such condition that he cannot take care of himself. Why, even a dog or a cat going into a strange room spends its first moments in looking around to see how it can get out again in case of necessity.

Employers as a class have so many sins to answer for that there will be lively times for them on judgment day, I suppose, but that is no reason why the employee should be a fool. If a{337}

man sticks a knife into you, and is sent to State’s prison for it, his sentence punishes him, but it does not pay your doctor’s bill, or make up to you what you have lost in time and money while you have been lying in bed under the surgeon’s care.

The workingman is too often satisfied to do whatever is before him without fitting himself to do anything else in case of accident or change of business, or lack of demand, or any one of the various other accidents that may occur to disturb the even routine of his life. No man in any other line of business dare be so careless. There are clerks and book-keepers and men in the highest mechanical arts who are very good in their places, but who never fit themselves for anything better or anything else. These men are slaves—literally. Their employers know it, if the slaves themselves don’t. No matter how honest they may be, no matter how capable they are in their own specialties, these are the men who always are passed over when promotions are to be made, or when men are to be selected for higher positions.

By a strange coincidence these are also the men who grumble most at their rate of pay, their hours, the amount of work they have to do, and the manner in which their employers treat them. Many of them are such good fellows personally, so full of human virtues that are not{338} specially business virtues, that they excite a great deal of sympathy among their acquaintances, but in the case of any acquaintance who happens also to be an employer there is no sympathy whatever.

The American workingman, above all others on the face of the earth, needs to take this warning to heart, for one result of competition has been the subdivision of most varieties of mechanical labor to a degree which requires twenty or thirty men sometimes to complete a bit of work which once was done by a single individual. Undoubtedly work can be done cheaper in this way, and both capital and labor have some obligations to fulfil toward the consumer, but the less a man is a “full-handed workman,” which means that he can do all branches of the business in which he is engaged, the more necessary it is for him to be prepared to do something else in case of emergency.

To illustrate: there was a time, almost within the memory of the present generation, when miniature painting was the most profitable division of art work in the United States. A fine miniature would bring more money than an oil painting. Suddenly the process of daguerreotyping was discovered. Then came the ambrotype and photograph, and other cheap methods of making accurate likenesses, and as a consequence miniature{339} paintings became less and less in demand, and the few members of the profession who still survive have none at all of the work at which they once were famous. Some of them took to drawing on wood, others went into oil portraits, some devoted themselves to water-colors, and others went into mechanical businesses where a good and accurate eye for color and proportion commanded good pay. But if the miniature painters, whose misfortunes were greater than those of any class of common laborers now complaining to the public, had insisted that the public owed them a living and they were going to have it, and that Congress should make laws enabling them to get a living out of their business, they would have been laughed to scorn. The miniature painters had no more brains than mechanics. What is fair for one is fair for another.

One of the first things that the young laboring man does is to take a wife. A wife is a desirable object of possession. So is a horse, a yacht or a handsome house, but the man who would load himself with either while he sees no means of supporting it except by weekly earnings which might be stopped at short notice by any one of a dozen accidents to life or business, would be regarded as a fool. Some people would call him a scoundrel. Yet when financially pushed a man can sell a horse or yacht, and get{340} at least part of the value while getting rid of responsibility. He cannot sell a wife, though, even if he is willing. That sort of business has become illegal. Even if it had not, the probabilities are that a wife, taken by a fellow who is so reckless as to marry before he is able to properly care for so precious and complicated a bit of property as a woman, would not be in salable condition.

The possession of a wife implies, quite implies, occasional bits of income, but also of responsibility, in the shape of children. “He who has wife and children has given hostages to fortune.” The rich man knows this to his cost, though he may get enough delight out of the experience to pay him a thousand times over. But to the poor man dependent upon daily wages, and with no property or savings to fall back upon, a family is often fetters, with ball and chain to boot. Thank God, such bonds often feel as light as feathers and soft as silk, but these sensations do not decrease the weight or dragging power one particle. If a man determines to marry while he has nothing to marry on, let him at least be honest with himself, tell himself that he is going to be the slave of whoever employs him, and blame himself instead of employers, or capital, or public opinion for the consequences.

There is a large class of workingmen who do{341} not seem to think they are fit for anything but what they are doing. Such men may be honest, cheerful, obedient, industrious, painstaking and obliging. Well, slaves have been all this and more. Such men are bound to be slaves. Nothing that trade unions, Knights of Labor, law, religion or public sentiment can do, can save them from practical slavery.

The men who organized any State, county or town in this Union had no bigger or healthier brains than the workingmen of to-day; but if each of them had imagined he could do but one kind of work, the map of our country would not look as it does now. Any of these men considered himself equal to taking a hand at building houses, clearing land, shoeing horses, digging post-holes, following the plough, planting corn, tending stock, loading steamboats, acting as deck-hand of a flatboat, carrying mails, or doing whatever else had to be done. They blundered terribly at times, but who did not and who does not? Each new kind of work they laid their hands to sharpened their wits and widened their view of what might be done in the way of getting ahead in the world. That is the reason why trade unions do not flourish in new countries. Men there have been taught by experience to take care of themselves. The common laborer in a new country thinks himself the equal of the judge, the doctor, the lawyer{342} and the railway president. And so he is, so far as a fair impulse and a fair show can make one man equal to another in the race for life.

It is a great pity that representative workingmen in our large cities cannot once in a while be sent on a tour of observation by their respective trade societies. It is the custom of almost every man to regard every one in his own business as about in his own condition. But an observing man going outside of the large cities and the manufacturing towns will quickly be undeceived regarding the possibilities and future of his own business, or of himself, or of any of his associates who have any spirit in them. He may find men of his own specialty doing work longer hours per day and for less money than he is accustomed to get, and they may seem to be having terribly hard times, but there is one significant difference between the two classes: the men in new countries never grumble at whatever their hard times may be. If nature refuses a crop, or makes a river overflow and washes away a town, or a plague of locusts comes upon them, they can grumble quite as badly as any one else. But so far as they have free use of their own wits and their own hands, they “don’t ask nothin’ of nobody,” to use their own emphatic expression.

The mechanic who works all day in the newer countries can seldom be found in the beer-shop{343} at night. He drops into the post-office, or the store, or the office of the justice of the peace, or wherever he sees a crowd of men, or knows that men will congregate, so that he may learn what is going on. He will change his business six times in the week, and then be guilty of doing it twice on Sunday, if there is any money in it. You never know the business of a man in a new country for more than a week at a time, unless you have your eye on him. It may seem awfully stupid to the stranger, but among people where his lot is cast the workingman manages to keep his end up, as the saying is, and the man who attempts to depress that end is dealt with by the individual himself. If a laboring man aggrieved in any of the newer countries were to go to his fellow-workmen for relief, he would be called either a fool or a coward. If he does not like what he is doing he is expected to try something else, just as every one else in the country does. The banker does not restrict himself to one single business, or one subdivision of business. Neither does the merchant, or the manufacturer, or any of the few farmers who have become “forehanded.” He does whatever he sees most money in, and he has blind faith in his ability to do it. It may not be the finest variety of finished labor, but that is not found anywhere except in the competitive trades.

It should not need any argument to prove all{344} this. There seldom is a great strike at any manufacturing centre during which a large number of the operatives do not disappear. Some of them find work elsewhere in their own specialty, but the oldest inhabitant, or the village gossip, or some one else who has time to pay close attention to other people’s business, can tell you that some of these men have struck out for themselves in some other direction, and they very seldom are able to tell you that any such change of business has brought unfortunate results. It has already been said in this book that some of the great industries of the country to-day are managed by men who once were common laborers.

However ignorant the workingman may be of the fact, or however willing he may be to ignore it, the truth is that the workingman half a century ago was a great deal worse off than his successors to-day. He worked longer hours, he got smaller pay—I mean smaller pay in proportion to the purchasing power of money, and his social position was very bad. Even the Revolutionary war, the Declaration of Independence, the rights of man, and all that sort of thing, didn’t break down at once the laws of caste that had come to us from the old country. It was not so very long ago that even the students of Harvard University were classified according to their ancestry, the list being led by gentlemen,{345} which was followed by the profession and then brought up by the general assortment of what the late Mr. Venus called “humans various.”

The apprentice was not only household servant as well as work-boy to his employer, but he was kept in order by a strap or a club, and the law not only could give him no redress for personal abuse, but it recognized the right of the employer to treat his boys in that manner. Boys brought up in that way had not much independence when they became men, and the independent spirit of the present generation was a thing almost unknown in the more thickly settled communities at that time. The workingman in that day was more religious than his successors in the present generation, but when he went to church he sat in the poorest seats; generally he sat in the gallery. When he was out of work he went to the poor-house. The poor-house was built especially for people of his kind. Perhaps in some of the large cities workingmen and their families go to the poor-house to-day, but most of them will take pains to go to another community than that in which they are known before they allow themselves to be supported in such manner.

The people of the United States cannot afford at any price to support a class which proposes to stay in one spot, making no endeavor to go further or go higher. No grade of society can{346} afford to support such a class. The class itself cannot afford to remain in any such position. Allusion has already been made to the willingness of men of the present generation to enslave their fellow-men when they get special opportunity. The methods are not the same as of old, but the fact is the same and the practice is steadily fostered by the inability of a great number of men and women to impress upon the public any ability to be anything better than slaves.

The workingman may take such consolation as there may be in the fact that this rule does not apply to him or to his own class alone. It exists everywhere. There are plenty of business houses who keep their men under their power, body and soul, by a custom, apparently founded on good nature, of lending them money in excess of their earnings. It is a modification of the South American consistado plan, to which allusion has already been made, and it works just as well in New York or Chicago, or any other manufacturing centre, as it does in South America. A man who will not spend his earnings in advance if he can get them is pretty hard to find. If this were not so there would be very little of running to banks, by business men, for discounts and loans, and “shaves.” The impulse to discount the future is almost as old as the world itself. It dates all the way back to{347} the Garden of Eden, when our first parents began to devour some fruit which they were not yet entitled to.

It may be that slavery sometimes is pleasant. Indeed, it often is. In spite of all the bad stories that were told about the treatment of the southern blacks during old slavery days, there were a great many plantations from which the slaves did not run away, even after they heard of the Emancipation Proclamation, and knew, from what they heard in the dining-room and parlor, that the South was on its last legs, and that the good old times could not possibly come back again. There were many plantations found by the Union army, during its tramps through certain States, which the masters and the mistresses had abandoned, but to which the colored people clung closely, from old association alone, and were found there when the owners came back again. Slavery exists still in many portions of the world, principally eastern countries, and Europeans of high character and close observation have declared that the condition does not inflict cruel or unfair burdens upon the enslaved.

But this is a free country. All our institutions are based upon the theory that one man is just as good as another, and not only so, but that he ought to be expected to be as good as his neighbors, and that as soon as he ceases to be an{348} independent being, the master of his own time and of his own family, including all their interests, he is not equal to his duties and responsibilities as a citizen. We hear a great deal about votes purchased for money and whiskey and offers of office; but does any one realize how entirely the political status of certain States and counties and towns depends upon the opinions of even the temporary whims of certain large employers? There are thousands of men in each of at least three New England States who would not dare vote any way than they are requested to do by their employers. Fac-similes of cards and written notices have been printed to show that in certain mills the proprietors announced that their operatives were expected to vote for certain candidates which were named. If an American, an inhabitant of the freest country of the world, cannot vote as he pleases, what does his personal liberty amount to? Even a tramp has a right to his own vote, or to sell it to the highest bidder, if he has been long enough a resident of the locality in which he attempts to deposit his ballot. There are slaves in banks and mercantile houses as well as in manufacturing establishments, so the laboring man need not feel hurt at the intimation that he is in danger of being subjected to an involuntary servitude which not only will control his time, but also his mind, to such an extent that he is not a free{349} agent in anything regarding moral opinion or his duties as a citizen.

The principal outlet for the energies of the workingman at the present time is undoubtedly in the newer parts of the country. There is where he is almost sure to be found if he is a man of proper spirit and has not handicapped himself so it is impossible for him to reach there. This outlet will be practicable for at least a generation to come. We hear a great deal about the new countries being filled up and there being no chance for a man any longer, but some thousands of men who have footed it half-way across the continent can tell us differently, and show substantial proofs that they are right.

The man who resolves not to take any heavy responsibilities upon his time or pocket until he considers himself fairly settled in life, can always make his way to the new country, and there in no part of this land, although it is not a land flowing with milk and honey, in which he cannot find something to do. I once was made curious, by the conversation of a number of workingmen in a large pork-packing establishment in a small town in the West, to know where they had come from, and what their previous occupation had been, and among twenty-seven men I found twenty-one businesses and professions represented, not one of which was pork-packing. Nevertheless each of these men was{350} earning two dollars and a half a day, and keeping an eye open for something better, which I am happy to say I saw some of them realize within a few months. At that very time at least one-half of the trades which these men had originally learned, and in which they were all supposed to be experts, were languishing in the East, and a great number of those engaged in them were in that desperate condition of mind that in other countries has often precipitated riots and brought about bloodshed and prolonged disorder.

But—let workingmen note the distinction—only two of these twenty-seven men were already married. What they had earned already was their own. They were able to move about from place to place until they found a satisfactory opening in life. Some of them afterward went to the dogs. It is impossible to find any lot of men together by chance in which there will not be some incompetents and some who, through one failing or other, would be their own enemies if they were in the best of hands. There were only twelve men in the first company of assistants organized by Jesus Christ, and one of them turned out to be a scoundrel in spite of the excellent company in which he found himself.{351}

CHAPTER XIII.

IMMIGRATION.

BECAUSE this is a land of liberty a great many foreigners imagine it a land of license. To do them justice, they do not know any better. But we do, and it is our duty to teach them the difference. If we don’t, we, not they, will be the principal sufferers.

The subject of immigration has been largely discussed by the newspapers of late, and a good deal of demagogy has been got off in Congress on the same subject. But sensible people are pretty well agreed that it is time to put some restriction upon the use of America as a common dumping ground for the world’s offal and rubbish. This country is not an asylum for criminals or paupers. That ought to go without saying and it should not require any argument to prove, but it seems we have been very careless in this direction. A short time ago the New York Herald said: “America is no longer to be considered the legitimate dumping ground for the paupers, the idiots, the insane and the criminals of Europe,” and Congressman Ford, chairman of the Immigration{352} Committee and father of the bill which was presented in January, made the statement that “if the law could be strictly enforced I believe our immigration would be decreased from these sources at least one hundred and fifty thousand per annum.” This is an awful proportion of the aggregate of immigration, for the entire figure exceeds half a million per year very little. Still Mr. Ford may be supposed, from his position, to know what he is talking about, for his committee has spent a great amount of time in examining a great many witnesses who are supposed to understand the nature of the immigration to this country of the peoples of the whole world. But enough about paupers, idiots, insane and criminals; everybody is agreed that we do not want them.

Are there any other classes whom we do not want? Yes; we cannot afford to have the contract laborer. The native labor organizations have talked a good deal of nonsense about the foreigner, but not on this one subject. The importation on contract of men to do a certain amount of work for a smaller sum than American citizens would accept, and to carry back almost all their earnings to be spent in another country, is a very successful way of making a nation poor. If we were to send all of our money to Europe for the purchase of supplies and Europe were to buy nothing of us in return, it would soon be{353}

impossible to raise enough coin to buy a postage stamp. Yet contract labor is a transaction of exactly the same nature, and it is increasing at a rate that may be estimated from the known ability and willingness of large employers to have work done as cheaply as possible, regardless of the consequences to every one but themselves.

When, however, statesmen or politicians, or demagogues or well-meaning labor agitators or leaders, insist that skilled labor should be kept out of the country, it is to the interest of the community to firmly, persistently and indignantly oppose any such proposition. Lack of skilled labor is the curse of the country. Because a man is employed on work which requires skill and experience is no sign that he is fully competent to do it. The tramps who bind the farmer’s wheat, the cast-aways and chance laborers who build some houses in the West, the riff-raff who are gathered together occasionally to work a mine, or sail a ship, or do the work of a plantation or a farm for a short season, are the most costly labor that could be employed, and a great deal of work supposed to be done by experts in the United States is almost as expensive. So long as we don’t allow young men to learn trades—and that seems to be the rule at present—we must have men who have learned trades somewhere else. Plenty of Americans can be found in New York city at half an hour’s notice who{354} complain with real patriotic feeling that, while they would like all their own employés to be Americans, they cannot find a large number or even a respectable majority of natives who are sufficiently skilled to do the work for which they are called upon. The consumption of pianofortes, for instance, in the United States, is twenty times as great, according to statistics of trade, as in any other country of equal population in the world. But in going through a piano factory one might very quickly imagine himself in a foreign country. It is not that the manufacturers are all foreigners, for they are not, or that they prefer foreign labor, or that foreign piano-makers work cheaper than those of native birth, but simply because we have scarcely any of native birth, although this variety of manufacturing industry has been active in this country for nearly two generations.

In many other of the mechanical arts the same lack of native skilled labor is manifested. The wall-paper printers, the engravers, the better class of weavers, and several other mechanical arts, which require the services of draughtsmen and colorists, are almost all obliged to depend upon men of foreign birth for their work. It is pleasing to realize that most of these foreign workmen are now naturalized American citizens and probably quite as loyal to the Union and the Constitution as any of our native-born operatives,{355} but the probabilities are, that as they grow old or disabled, and have to be replaced, the new men must come from the same sources as the old. Between Americans not being allowed to learn trades, and Americans not being willing to learn trades, we are pretty badly off for mechanical labor unless we can depend upon foreign countries.

We need not blame foreigners for this; we have only our own selves to blame and our own people. The reason for the general dependence upon foreign labor, beside the inability of young men who wish to learn a trade to be allowed to follow their inclinations, is that the most of our own people are rapidly getting above anything and everything that does not afford an opportunity for speculation. Beside, it is one of the inevitable results of the theory of social equality, a theory which must do a great deal more harm than it yet has done before we abandon it, that, as the wealth and prosperity of the country increases, and new opportunities of making money multiply, the sons of farmers and mechanics will be reluctant to follow the occupations of their fathers. We have heard a great deal about the unwillingness of the Hebrews to indulge in any mechanical or routine labor, and their avidity to enter all branches of trade where barter and sale are the principal occupations, but the modern American can double discount{356} the Hebrew in this particular and then get ahead of him about as often as not.

There is no sign that the native-born American youth will revert to the good old custom of his fathers, and endeavor to learn a trade, even if he were able to do it. It is unfashionable to work with one’s hands in a country where most of the money is made by working with one’s wits. The mechanic’s son, and the farmer’s son, and the day laborer’s son gets as good a common-school education as the children of the richest men in the town, and has equal opportunities for going into mercantile business, or for entering the offices of business houses and corporations, and his own father will tell him that he is a fool unless he embraces these opportunities. No man gets rich by farming alone, or by laboring at day’s wages at any mechanical occupation, whereas some men in trade and speculation amass great fortunes. That forty-nine out of every fifty finally fail and never get upon their feet again does not occur either to the youth or to his parents. Let us hope that some day it will, and that our young men will not be ashamed to earn their bread literally by the sweat of their brow. But the prospect at present for any such change seems exceedingly remote. Indeed, until the change occurs we will need all the skilled labor we can get from abroad. Unless the supply increases we will either have to give{357} up some of our country’s business schemes and prospects, or we will be obliged to offer a bounty or a premium to foreign laborers to come over here.

We especially need foreign farmers and workmen for the instruction of our own farmers, and a large immigration of foreign agriculturists, if they could be sprinkled among our agricultural communities in the various States, would do more than any proposed legislation to improve the condition of the American farmer. In his efforts to get beyond his strength and resources, efforts which are natural in all new countries, our farmer wastes enough to support another farmer. The Englishman, or Frenchman, or German, or Swede, can teach him how not to do this. There are a great many unprofitable farms near the city of New York, but when you see a small piece of ground tilled to the full extent of its capacity, and sending in large loads of fat vegetables to the city every day, you may safely bet that the proprietor is a foreigner. In one neighborhood very near New York city, a lot of discontented farmers are envious of the prosperity of one fellow who is tilling only thirteen acres, yet who has saved enough money to buy three houses in the city of New York, each of which yields him a handsome income. And who is this lucky fellow? A highly educated German, or a scientific English farmer? No; he is{358} a wretched Laplander, a man who is obliged to be ashamed of the province which gave him birth, and who poses among acquaintances as a Swede. He was a common farm laborer in his own country, and came here with very little more money than would pay his board at a den near the Battery for two or three days until some one should employ him. But he had learned how to turn every scrap of soil to the best advantage, how to make the most of all fertilizers, and how to get the largest number of crops out of a given amount of soil in a given time. During the agricultural depression of Great Britain a few years ago, which followed several successive wet years, a number of English farmers sold out at a sacrifice, came over here and located wherever best they could, and it is astonishing to see how fast some of these men have got along, and how well fixed they now are, as the saying is. They didn’t seem to be very smart fellows. In a horse-trade, or a shooting-match, or a political squabble, the best of them cannot hold his own for five minutes with an ordinary American. But when it comes to farming so as to make every resource of the estate count for all that it is worth, they leave the American farmer far behind.

Nevertheless, we need to restrict and regulate more systematically, and with more rigor than we ever did it before. Of course we have the{359} right to refuse absolutely undesirable immigrants. No one can deny this with any show of reason, and if we would fight to maintain this principle no nation could blame us. But we also have the right to deny citizenship to workmen coming from any portion of the world, until we are satisfied that they intend to become citizens, and that they will be desirable acquisitions. We are quite competent to keep up our own supply of idiots, and paupers and criminals. No nation has a monopoly of that sort of thing, and we do quite as well in that way as could be expected of us, and far better than suits our tax-payers. For the freedom of mind and body, and the prospects of founding homes for all of his posterity, an honest man should be willing to remain in this country a long time before claiming full rights of citizenship. There never were any complaints under the old rule, which required a very long term of probation, and there would be none under the new. Property rights of aliens are respected quite as much as those of natives, and there is no other right in which our laws distinguish between the native and the foreigner. A chance tourist arriving here and getting into legal difficulty of any kind has quite as good a chance of obtaining justice as the richest man in the nation. This is not an American idea, for foreigners themselves have said the same. Intelligent foreigners, makers of opinion on the other side of the water,{360} have marvelled again and again in speech and in print at the carelessness with which America admitted all classes of foreign-born persons to the rights of citizenship, and have declared that were citizenship rights to be delayed until the second generation came of adult age, there would be nothing in the law or customs of the country which would give a foreign-born resident any reason for complaint.

Unless we restrict immigration there is nothing to prevent any foreign nation, desiring to pick a quarrel with us so as to steal some of our property, or have some of her own troublesome inhabitants disposed of by bullet wounds, or “to weld the people together” when they are pulling every which way, from sending a few carefully selected men here for the express purpose of fitting out a pretended dynamite expedition or something of the kind, for which the United States would be called to account. But that is only part of what they can do. At the present day every German and Frenchman under middle age has received a military training. There is nothing to prevent a few thousand picked soldiers, with their officers, being sent here in small parties in the guise of ordinary immigrants, to rally and rise at a given signal, seize some of our cities, forts and navy-yards, overcome our make-believe army and establish a reign of terror, from which we could not release ourselves speedily without ransom.{361} They could find arms and munitions of war without the slightest trouble, for such things are on sale to every purchaser in every village in the land, and when desired in large quantities they can be purchased from any of our large manufacturers without the purchaser first undergoing the formality of answering unpleasant questions. As for commissariat, they could live on the land. There is no portion of it from which a body of armed men could not obtain all they need in the way of food and clothing. There would be no difference between such a movement and the insurrections by which almost all of the older nations have suffered from time to time—insurrections some of which have been dignified by success to the rank of revolutions. The mobs which started the French revolution had a large army to oppose them, and they had little opportunity for arming and organizing themselves, nevertheless they succeeded in overturning one of the oldest monarchies in the world, and apparently one of the strongest.

Among the classes whom we must most resolutely exclude from this country are those which, in good earnest and with justifiable sense of wrong, but nevertheless with utter disregard of the land of their adoption, organize disturbances to be carried on in the lands from which they come. Russian nihilists, disaffected Canadians, Irish dynamiters, French socialists and anarchists,{362} and all the other broods of disturbers of the peace of foreign lands are out of place in the United States. Many of them have abundant cause for the hatred which they manifest toward the governments from which they have escaped. Most of them have the sympathy of the people of the United States, to the extent of wishing that desirable reforms might be accomplished in lands where any classes are wrongly treated or find themselves at disadvantage in comparison with other classes more favored. But this country cannot afford to be a hot-bed of discontent from which the germs may be sent abroad. When the time for accounting comes, the bill will not be sent to the disturbers, but to the nation which harbored them. We have been dangerously near war with Great Britain two or three times on account of the operations of the large class generally known as Irish sympathizers. There is probably no class of foreign-born residents of the United States who have more reason in law and morals for the feeling which they manifest than these same Irish sympathizers. But when they come here as citizens the safety of this country, which we have the right to regard as an interest paramount to that of any other which may exist in the hearts of our people, must rank first. If this class or any other class of disturbers of the peace of foreign countries persist in their agitation on this{363} side of the water, it is the duty of the nation to expel them. Where they may go is an important question to them, but it is not one with which we can afford to concern ourselves. Perhaps there may be individuals among us who would take personal friends into their families with the understanding that they came there for the sole purpose of making trouble with their families; but nations have none of that sort of disinterested philanthropy. The few that have tried it cannot be found to-day on the maps of any well-edited atlas.

The United States has nothing to fear from honest, well-meaning immigrants, no matter how stupid they are. Transplanting does wonders for wild-wood trees and shrubs that amount to nothing in their native wastes, and the improvement which some unpromising foreign stock has often made in this country recalls the traditional remark of the Bad Habit to the Small Boy: “Look at me now and the day you got me.” Some of the most exquisite gentlemen and able men of our land descended from clodhoppers of no one nationality, who came to this country only a generation or two ago. Some of the wisest and grandest spirits of our revolutionary periods were descendants of articled servants who came away not many years before. But, pshaw! Which of us who has not pure Indian blood in his veins did not descend from immigrants who a little{364} while ago were so badly off in the old country that they had to move to get enough to eat and wear? Some self-appointed aristocrats may except to this general classification, but either they lie or they don’t know why their ancestors came here. No foreigner who is living comfortably at home, and who has nothing to be ashamed of, is going to a new country unless he has some unrest in him which will make him a nuisance if he remains at home. Of course political annoyances have been influential in sending us many immigrants, but very few from the classes who have any possible excuse for thinking themselves better than other men. The development of fine natures from very rude stock in the United States has been so marvellous in some of its instances as to deserve a large book specially devoted to the subject. A little while ago it was discovered that a famous judge, whose opinions and rulings are held in respect in courts of every State of this Union, was the son of a pauper immigrant. A gentleman who was very favorably mentioned a few years ago as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States said himself that his father, who was an immigrant, was so poor that the son went to school without breakfast for five successive years, and acquaintances of this estimable and highly cultivated gentleman, who stood at the very head of one of the most learned professions, said that the father was unable to read or{365} write at the time of his death. The population of the State of California started with men of all classes from all parts of the world. Probably more adventurers and worthless men took part in the rush for gold than can be found in all the state-prisons of the United States at the present day. Yet the descendants of some of these very objectionable characters are to-day men of prominence and character. The natives of that State attributed this wonderful change to the “glorious climate of California.” But it is not necessary to make any such explanation. Cases of the same kind, though not perhaps in so large proportion, can be found in all the States of the Union. It is impossible that it should be otherwise. Whatever may happen to the original immigrant, his posterity has as fair a chance as that of any native. His children go to the same schools, the same churches, they mingle freely with all persons of their own age, have the same interests, same impulses, aspirations, and opportunities.

There is another great promise to this country also through its immigrant population, which may not be announced as a fact, but which certainly has a great deal of probability in it. Mr. Darwin, who in tracing the descent of species seemed to interest himself in the descent of everything else, explained once the method by which forests suddenly appear upon some tracts{366} of land which apparently had been long destitute of any of the larger varieties of vegetation. He found upon examination of one such tract that while the arboreal shoots which had first come into view that year were small, they nevertheless had enormous roots. Ploughing and cultivation had kept the soil above these roots broken for a great many years, or cattle in grazing over the ground had kept everything nipped short. Nevertheless the roots or germs were there, and through the very process of repression seemed to accumulate a strength which they put forth, when they were allowed to do so, as if they were making up for lost time, which was exactly the deduction which Mr. Darwin made in longer and more scholarly form. It is known to breeders that the strain of families of various species is frequently improved by infusion of the blood of an animal of the sort commonly known as a “runt;” that is, one which has been stunted in its growth. The average immigrant is a man who has been repressed for generations and perhaps for centuries. When his opportunity for development comes he really seems to have the capacity to make up for lost time. There is no other way of explaining the wonderful improvement in many thousands of American families of foreign extraction. There have been some amusing results of efforts of men, suddenly become prominent and deservedly so, in tracing their ancestry.{367} They learned what Burns once expressed about himself after he had made similar investigations:

The wonderful virility and prosperity of the Hebrew in this country, as well as in those European countries where he has been allowed a chance beside his fellow-men, cannot be explained except upon this theory of accumulated strength during long periods of repression.

Americans can stand all this sort of thing that Europe can bless us with. According to statisticians it costs two or three thousand dollars to bring a child from the cradle up to adult age and working power. Consequently every able-bodied foreigner we get who is willing to work is worth two or three thousand dollars to our nation and is so much capital in our pockets. Let us have all we can of them. The men who complain of them are those who are not capable of taking care of themselves.{368}

CHAPTER XIV.

ANNEXATION.

THIS country has many important duties to fulfil in the family of nations, but annexation of other lands is not one of them.

The contrary opinion is sometimes expressed, but the sooner we sit down upon it the less likely we are to neglect our own business.

Annexation is an old business, and sometimes it has been profitable; but the nations who best understood it have but few of their old possessions left, and they would get rid of some of these, if they could without being laughed at.

What nations could we stand any fair chance of annexing? Perhaps Mexico, Canada and some of the West India Islands. What could be done with them? Nothing that, in the long run, would benefit us. What would they do with us? They would merely introduce discordant elements that would not help us a particle in making our own national position secure. Our country is so large already that there are jarring interests making themselves felt and known in Congress, in the press, in public opinion, and{369}

with all the efforts that have been made they are approaching solution at so slow a rate that a number of the advocates of one side or the other are discouraged and indignant. There are a great many brilliant theories of what might be done by the annexation of this or that country by the United States. But an ounce of fact is worth a ton of theory, and fortunately we have enough facts to keep us for a long time in examination if we will take the pains.

The ancient nation called Rome was the champion annexer of the world. She annexed every territory that it was possible for her soldiers to reach, and at one time the entire world owed allegiance to Rome. It was practical allegiance, too, because we read in the Gospel according to St. Matthew that in the days of Augustus Cæsar there went out a decree that all the world should be taxed. To collect taxes from annexed countries is more than some modern nations have ever been able to do. The military and political prestige of Rome was afterward strengthened by religion. Rome ruled the souls as well as the bodies and estates of men, but even the Holy Roman empire went to pieces.

Greece did a great deal of annexing in the days of Alexander, who penetrated farther into the civilizations of the East than the legions of the Cæsars ever did, but Greece to-day is a mere spot upon the map.{370}

But it is not necessary to go so far back. The great colonizing and annexing schemes of the world, when nation after nation became numerous and free enough to compete with each other, began soon after the discovery of America. Nearly every European power planted colonies in some portions of the new world. Most of these powers exist and are strong to-day. But where are their colonies? England has Canada to be sure, simply because she does not know how to get rid of it. But Spain has not a foot of ground upon the mainland of America, and holds her island possessions by very uncertain tenure. Look at Cuba, “the ever-faithful island,” as she is called, with the greatest extremity of sarcasm. The majority of the inhabitants detest the mother country and all the officials she sends out there, her taxes are paid grudgingly, again and again a large minority of the inhabitants have struggled to free themselves from the Spanish yoke, and the struggle will probably continue in view of the illustrious examples set by Mexico and all the South American republics. Perhaps you will say that Spain is a bankrupt old brute. Well, that is not overstating the matter at all. But look from Spain to Holland. The Dutch have not been cruel taskmasters. They have planted a number of colonies, and their paternal government, if characterized by thrift, has also been unstained by any of the cruelties and brutalities{371} which have made the name of Spain a synonym for savagery. How many of Holland’s colonies remain in the possession of the mother country? None of any consequence except the island of Java, and Java is no longer a treasury for Holland.

France at one time had large colonial possessions. She owned nearly one-half of the territory now embraced by the boundaries of the United States and all of Canada beside. France has now a few insignificant islands and some undesirable swamp-land in Africa, which is valuable chiefly as a place to send military officers who are so ambitious at home as to be somewhat troublesome. Sweden has no colonies at all. Denmark has two or three little islands near the Equator, and has an elephant on her hands in the shape of Iceland.

But, you say that England is an exception to all these relations. Well; is she? Do facts and figures justify the assertion? The most peaceable portion of the British empire at the present time is the Dominion of Canada. Canada gives England absolutely no trouble on her own part. Australia is about as good. But of what use is either country to England except as a resort for dissatisfied Englishmen who wish to begin life anew somewhere else?—an opportunity which they could have equally well if England didn’t own a particle of soil outside the British islands.{372}

But England has a large empire in the East. She holds nearly all of India. Yes; but how does she hold it? Some of it by absolute possession, and a great deal through protectorates and treaties, through intrigues with native princes and by other means which the people of the United States would think beneath the dignity of our own country to exercise anywhere else. We know what happened in India a few years ago when great masses of people rose against English rule, and gave us the most horrible details of war that this century has ever heard of. England’s unrest and uneasiness about her possessions in India can be seen by any one who reads the English newspapers or magazines or reviews. Some phase or other of the Indian question is continually popping up, and there never is anything in it to pacify the national unrest as to the future of the two countries. The possibility of assimilation of the population of India and England is laughed at by Englishmen of all degrees. Britons will not live in India unless they are compelled to do so, and also coaxed by compensation such as Englishmen never expect to receive at home. Even in the days of “John Company” it was impossible to keep an army there without double pay. I am not certain about the private soldiers, but the officers received their pay from the home government and{373} an equal amount from the company, and even then the majority of them were discontented.

As for the natives liking England or English habits or English customs, it would be unreasonable to expect it, even did not facts prove that it is impossible. Native Indians of wealth and intelligence frequently visit England but very few remain. What is called the superior civilization of the West has no charms for them. And they don’t take English customs and principles home with them to disseminate among their own class and the orders beneath it. Many intelligent natives will admit that portions of the country are better ruled than they were under the native princes a hundred or more years ago. But at heart the feeling is that the old ways, if not the best, are certainly the most desirable and the most fitted to the nature of the people. England is in chronic fear of uprisings and disturbances. Her most statesmanlike public officials and her ablest soldiers are sent to India; not enough of them can be spared even to cross the channel to Ireland.

And, speaking of Ireland, which is another of Great Britain’s annexations, is there a more prominent and damning disgrace existing in the name of any civilized government of the world? It is not necessary to go over the Irish question at all. Every man knows enough about it to know that England’s rule of Ireland has been an{374} entire and disgraceful failure, and that with ample opportunities for colonization, for maintaining military establishments, for pacifying the people, England has persistently and continuously failed to make Ireland anything but a hot-bed of hatred.

Where England is at peace with her colonies, what price does she pay? Why, she simply makes them almost absolutely independent of the home government. Except nominal allegiance to the mother country and the acceptance of a viceroy, governor-general, or representative of the throne by some title or other, these countries are almost as free of England as the United States. They have their own parliaments, elect their own officials, make their own laws, assess their own taxes, and even perpetrate huge tariff lists, under which the products of the mother country are obliged to pay handsomely for being admitted at all. The only bond between Canada or Australia and England is one of affection to the mother country. This sometimes endures to the second generation, but there is precious little of it in the third. You can easily enough find that out for yourself by going up to Canada and becoming acquainted in almost any town in the Dominion. It seems farcical, but it is nevertheless a fact, that the best English citizens in Canada are Frenchmen, descendants of the original settlers who fought England furiously and often{375} successfully for more than a hundred years. And the only ground for the loyalty of these people is apparently that there is no other place for them to go, and no way to take with them what little they possess.

Australia is just as independent as Canada. If she should attempt to secede and declare herself as independent as she really is, England would probably send down fleets and armies, and there would be war for a long time, with the same result in the end that followed the attempt to change the opinions of the thirteen colonies who organized this nation of ours. England’s rule of the United States certainly was not severe. Now that the spirit of the Revolution has been watered out through two or three generations, it is perfectly safe to admit that England never took as much money out of this country as she put into it. So, regarded as a business enterprise, annexation or colonization did not pay here. As soon as she began to demand taxes from the colonies the revolt began. The question of her moral right is one that is not discussed now. Discussion would not do any good. But if taxes cannot be levied upon a colony or an annexed country, of what possible service is the new land to the old?

Well, what is our lesson from all this? What would be the result of our annexing either Mexico, Canada, or Cuba, for instance, to say nothing{376} of the small republics in the Caribbean Sea and in Central America, toward which some of our demagogues have occasionally pretended to cast longing eyes, and found a few fools to encourage them in doing so? It would be utterly impossible under the spirit of our institutions for us to treat any such land as a conquered country. The Declaration of Independence would have to be completely overturned before we could consistently enter upon any such custom. The most that we could do would be to admit these countries as portions of the Union. We would scarcely pretend to obtain them by force for this purpose, but if we were to want to get them peaceably, what would be the only method? Why, by granting them equal rights with our own citizens. Successful annexation would depend upon the acquiescence of the majority of the inhabitants of the countries alluded to. These people, like people everywhere else, have leaders of their own. All leaders have aspirations and personal ambitions, and personal pockets which never are sufficiently full. We would have to provide for them first before we could be certain of the people. We would be obliged to divide each country into States bearing some proportion of population to those which we already have. We would be obliged to give them representation in both Houses of Congress, provide judicial systems for them, and in every way recognize them as our equals.{377}

Now, the truth is, no sane American believes the people of any of those countries to be equal to those of our own. There are intelligent Mexicans and Cubans and Canadians, but we as a body have very little respect for the general run of people in those countries; no more respect than their own rulers have, and that is very little. Some exception must be made in the case of Canada, which is inhabited, so far as the whites are concerned, mainly by intelligent people. But Mexico, according to its own statesmen and according to all travellers who have been in it, is practically a semi-civilized country. The most of the inhabitants are deplorably ignorant. Freedom of ballot is an utter farce. Law is a matter of barter, and life and property, while nominally secure, are frequently threatened by uprisings which no local government has yet been able to promptly suppress, and which certainly could not be suppressed by a central government three thousand miles away with an army of the conventional size of that of the United States.

Cuba is worse than Mexico rather than better. Cuba has been in a condition of discontent and disturbance for so long that there are but few portions of the island on which life and property are safe. The majority of the voters can be purchased at any election time for a very small outlay of money or rum, and the same purchased voters could be persuaded by similar means to{378} rise within a week against the newly elected authorities, even if all happened to be their own candidates for office. The class of representatives which Cuba would be obliged to send to Washington could not possibly be expected to have any interest in national legislation except such as pertained to their own portion of the land. They have no sympathies of any sort with any portion of the people or industries or aspirations of the United States. It would be unfair to expect it of them. By birth and tradition they are radically different from us. Their isolation from us would be none the less even were they part of our country, and the consequence would be an alien class, demanding everything and yielding nothing, exactly what would be the case were we to annex Mexico.

Canada may drift to us in time. Some statesmen on both sides of the line regard this as inevitable. Well, what must be will be. But before any such marriage of nations there ought to be a long courtship between the parties. At present there is no love whatever between them, and until there is a marked change in this respect the union would be too utterly selfish on each side to be safe for either. We want some things from Canada, it is true. We have used up most of our visible supply of standing timber, and we could find enough in Canada for a century to come to make up for all deficiencies. But what{379} else would we get? Very little. We assume that Canada will buy a great deal from us. But it does not seem to occur to the majority of our people that Canada is not a large purchasing country. Canada has not only no rich class, as we regard the expression, but her well-to-do class is poor, and the majority of her people are not only very poor, but have very few needs and demands to be supplied even had they unlimited means. The French Canadians, who are probably the most industrious of the population, live more plainly than any American would believe until he had travelled in the country largely. They are so poor that they regard themselves in paradise financially when they can find occupation upon American fishing vessels and in American factories. The pay of factory hands in the Eastern States is very small, as the trades’ unions have informed us frequently and without any exaggeration, but it is infinitely better than anything that the young men and young women of Lower Canada could find at home. The home of the French Canadian, who seems to be entirely contented, contains so little furniture that to the poor mechanic of a Northern city it would seem very bare and empty. The farming population of English birth is better off, lives better and has broader and more expensive tastes. But it is one thing to have tastes and quite a different thing to have the means to gratify them. The means{380} would not be any greater if those people were citizens of the United States than they are now.

One thing we would receive in bountiful measure from Canada were we to annex her, and that is debt. She is loaded with debt in proportion to the assessed value of everything within her borders about five times as heavily as the United States, and let no one imagine that the Canadian is going to be fool enough to become part of our country and pay a proportion of our debts without having her own debts paid by us. The Canadian debt and ours would have to be amalgamated, with the result that each individual taxpayer of the United States would have to take a share in paying, literally paying, for Canada.

I know that a great deal is said about the vexatious questions that would be entirely disposed of were Canada to become part of this Union. But would we really get rid of them? All of the territory to the north of us is not strictly Canadian. Some of it still belongs to England, and even if England were quite willing to be entirely rid of the Dominion, she would keep a foothold here if only for the purpose of having a source of food supply from the fisheries. Nearly two hundred years ago, when the British islands were nowhere near as populous as at present, and the sea yielded a bountiful harvest all along the British coast, England fought France savagely{381} on the fisheries question, and America so fully sympathized with her as to assist her to the best of her ability. So, as long as England is anywhere on our border, it would be useless to imagine ourselves rid of her as a possible enemy. She could concentrate troops and munitions of war quite as easily upon any large island or point of the upper half of North America as she can in Canada. She might not be quite so near our border or have so many opportunities for crossing, but she would be far enough away for us not to be able to watch her so closely.

The only purposes of annexation, now that men are no longer stolen and killed for the nominal reason that we wish to make Christians of them, are to get something worth having for its own sake or to find a place of overflow for surplus population. None of our neighbors are rich except in debt. They have nothing we want which we cannot get cheaper by purchase than at the expense of time, money and patience that even peaceable annexation would require.

As for receptacles of overflow, we already have enough to last us a century or two. Do not take any stock in the story that there is no more government land worth having, and that there are no more chances for the poor man in the United States. I know that such stories are told frequently by those who are supposed to know most about it. The younger men of the farming communities{382} of the West, some thousands of them, have been howling for years to be allowed to enter the so-called territory of Oklahoma. But if to each of the majority of these men were given a quarter section of land in the Garden of Paradise as it existed before the fall of Adam, they would still be looking out for some new location. There is a great floating, discontented mass of people in the new countries. The proportion is quite as great as it is in the large cities. There are many farmers in the West who have occupied half a dozen different homesteads on pre-emption claims in succession, turned up a little ground, built some sort of house which never was finished, become discouraged or disheartened or restless, sold out at a loss or abandoned their claims, put their portable property in a wagon or boat and started in search of some new country. Their impulse seems to be exactly that of the small boy who is out fishing. He always seems to think the fish will bite better a little further on, either up or down the stream, it does not matter which, and he rambles from one to the other because rambling is a great deal easier work than fishing. The unsurveyed territory of the United States is still enormous. Between the city of New York and the Ohio river there are still hundreds of thousands of acres of good land which never echoed the sound of the lumberman’s axe nor heard the ploughman’s whistle or oath.{383}

Several years ago the president of a prominent railway corporation, a trunk line, said to me that there were hundreds of miles of his company’s land which never contributed in any way to the support of the road. It produced nothing, and scarcely anything was carried over the road to it. And he wanted to know if I could give him any possible reason why immigrants by hundreds went over the line to points a thousand miles away when so much good land was awaiting tillage, and was several hundred miles nearer markets than the country to which they were going. I could not, except to suggest that it was human nature to imagine that the places which were furtherest away offered the greatest advantages.

Why, even in the State of New York, with its five or six million inhabitants, there are large counties, and not in the Adirondack region either, of which not more than half the good land is under cultivation to-day. The land is not bad, the distance from rail communication and from markets is not great. Everything is more favorable to the settler than in some portions of the Western States that are filling up rapidly, and yet the immigrant passes all these localities and goes further away, and he who already is there is often dissatisfied and anxious to sell out and go somewhere apparently for no other purpose except to get a new start. The hill countries of all the older States still contain immense quantities{384} of valuable ground which might be made to yield more profitable crops per acre than anybody’s wheat-land in the most favored sections of the United States. The ground that the State of Tennessee some years ago placed upon the market at six cents an acre so as to have it in personal instead of public possession, and with the hope of getting a little something out of it in the way of taxes, is as good as many of the more valuable portions of the Eastern States. The entire table-land of the mountain range that separates the Eastern States from the West is but sparsely inhabited. Not much of it can be utilized for large planting of staple crops, but all of it is valuable for something that might be turned to profit. It is better ground than the Switzers live well on in their native country and far better naturally than that of some of the more prosperous provinces of France. On the basis of the population of the State of New York, which State certainly is not overcrowded in its agricultural districts, this nation has room for all people who will be born in it or who by any possibility can immigrate to it for two or three centuries to come.

We need no place of overflow for any of our population that is not criminal, and this class can be trusted to find its own outlets and places of refuge without any assistance from the government or the people.{385}

CHAPTER XV.

THE INDIAN.

IT was not very long ago that the Indian was the object of a great deal of discussion and alarm in the United States.

He had a habit of breaking out at unexpected times and in unexpected places. He might be quiet in winter when the snow was deep and the reservation warehouse was so full of stores there was no possibility of his getting hungry, and consequently angry. When, however, the spring sun melted away the snow and brought the grass to the surface, so that it was cheaper to let a pony fatten on the grass than to kill him while he was lean, the Indian picked up his spirits and rifle—which always was a good one—and started on the warpath. He did not particularly care whom he might kill; but if there were no other Indian tribes about, he was not going home without a scalp, even if he had to kill a white man. The development of some of our Territories was arrested for months, and even years, by some Indian wars which began upon very slight pretext, and which our army, contemptible in numbers,{386} was unable to suppress promptly; and the savages gained confidence from the knowledge, which they were not compelled to ignore, that we were not a fighting nation.

Either through better soldiers or less dishonest agents, there has been a change in late years. The Indian has not been on the warpath in a long time, and some of the exciting accounts of Indian raids in the West amount only to this—that a body of men have left their reservation against the advice of their associates, and started on a stealing and murdering tour just far enough ahead of the military force to be able to do a great deal of harm in a short time.

At the same time, however, the idea has been creeping to the surface that the Indian might possibly be regarded as a human being and as amenable to the ordinary laws and customs of civilization.

All of us have heard the old brutal remark, attributed to General Sheridan and several other army officers, that the only good Indian is a dead one. But this is a base and cruel slander. There are a great many good Indians, and every honest Indian agent as well as every military officer who has much to do with the savage tribes knows that in each reservation there are a number of men, rude though they may be, who are of considerable character and large self-control, and whose principal faults may be charged to{387} the negligence of the government, which has regarded the red man as its special ward.

The Indian has brains. No one is quicker to admit this than the army officer who has had occasion to fight the Indian. General Custer was a good soldier and an experienced Indian fighter, but Chief Gall was a better one. The defeat of Custer is usually attributed to Sitting Bull, but that old ruffian simply did out-and-out fighting; the brains of the conflict—all the strategy and all the tactics—were supplied by an Indian named Gall, who still lives, and for whose military ability every officer in our army has a profound respect, not unmixed with fear.

The flowery and elaborate speeches which different representatives of savage tribes have made to the Great Father at Washington, through their interpreters, may seem to have a good deal of nonsense in them, but the Indian Bureau knows that they also contain a great deal of admirable diplomacy. It may be because the Indian has very little to think of and can give his whole mind to the subject under consideration; but whatever the reason, the fact is assured that in pow-wows between representatives of our Indian Bureau and some of the tribes in the Far West the preponderance of brains has not always been on the side of the white man.

Another unexpected development of the Indian question is, that the Indian will work.{388} This may seem a wild statement in view of what a number of travellers and military officers have seen on reservations in the Far West and at railway stations on the slender line which connects the civilization of the West with that of the Rocky mountains and the Pacific slope. But fortunately there are a number of witnesses to substantiate it; for instance, the Apaches are currently supposed to be the most irreclaimable tribe of wild men within our nation’s borders. It will not be hard to recall the difficulties which General Crook experienced in following, defeating and recalling Geronimo’s famous gang of Apaches a few years ago, when they were followed to a mountain fastness in Mexico. Yet when some of the demons who had murdered, ravished and burned everything in their path were finally brought back to the reservation and taught that by tilling the soil they could earn some money, or at least the equivalent of money, they worked harder than any American farmer whose achievements had ever been recorded. These so-called lazy devils supplied a military post with hundreds of tons of hay, every particle of which was cut by hand with such knives as the savages happened to have: they had no other tools with which to work. They also supplied the post with vegetables of various kinds, beside keeping themselves well fed with products of the soil which were results{389} of their own labor. Farms managed by Indians are not at all uncommon in the West. It was the eviction, or the fear of eviction of an old Indian woman from her farm, that led to the murder of Indian Agent Meeker in Colorado. An Indian named Ouray was for a long time one of the most successful and respected farmers in Colorado. Ouray not only managed his own business well, but kept in order all the Indians in his vicinity. His methods were somewhat rude to be sure, but they always were effective, and no army officer of his acquaintance hesitated to trust him as implicitly as he would trust the Secretary of War for the time being. An Indian at present is one of the land barons of the West, and has held his little estate near the centre of a large and flourishing town in spite of all temptations and machinations of rum-sellers, traders, lawyers and other scoundrels that have endeavored to swindle him out of his own.

But it isn’t necessary to go West to find out whether the Indian will work. One needs only to go down to Hampton, Virginia, where the government is supporting a lot of young Indians in the Normal school conducted by General Armstrong. I had heard so much about the unwonted spectacle of Indians, clothed and in their right minds, with clean faces and hands, studying books and using tools and behaving{390} themselves like human beings—that a little while ago I went down to Hampton myself and went through the schools. First, I asked General Armstrong whether the Indian would work.

“Will he work?” said the General, with a merry twinkle of his eye. “Well now, you roam about here yourself all day; I presume you know a red man from a black one when you see him; and you will have the question answered to your entire satisfaction.”

I did, and was convinced. I saw Indians out-of-doors working the soil, and Indians indoors, in the shops, handling tools as skilfully as the average white man. I saw houses inhabited by picked Indian families—young people with children, and the “housekeeping”—one of the most comprehensive words in the world—was so thorough in all visible respects that either family seemed fit to teach domestic economy and neatness in many Northern villages I have seen. I saw four Indians in a class-room, at four separate blackboards, draw, inside of three minutes by the clock, four quite accurate maps of North America, putting the principal lakes and rivers in their proper places. Several prominent Americans (white) were with me at the time, and each admitted, for himself, that he could not have done as well to save his life; yet one was one of those railroad monopolists who want to own the{391} earth, and are supposed to carry at least their own section of it in their mind’s eye.

From General Armstrong himself I got the following brief statement of the Indian situation, and I have been unable to find any one in authority who is able to contradict any part of it.

“There are now in this country (exclusive of the Alaskans) some 246,000 Indians, of whom 64,000 belong to the so-called civilized tribes, the Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks and Chickasaws. These, including their 16,000 ex-slaves, a rapidly increasing negro element, live, in the main, like white men. They, however, pay no taxes, receiving ample revenues from their interest in the sales of land to the government, but, while they have schools and churches and an organized government of their own, are held back by their adherence to the old tribal idea. This is thoroughly anti-progressive, and the savage Indian of to-day, who, taking his land in severalty, comes under the same law as his white neighbor, will probably in twenty years be well in advance of his Indian Territory brother, who, under existing conditions, can be neither one thing nor the other.

“The principal uncivilized tribes are the 20,000 Navajos in the Southwest, and the 30,000 Sioux in the Northwest. The first of these have nearly doubled in ten years, own 1,000,000 sheep and 40,000 ponies, are wholly independent and{392} self-supporting, but wild and nomadic; while the Sioux, who are but just holding their own, are still victims to the ration system. In spite, however, of this demoralizing influence, they have improved remarkably of late, chiefly because they have been fortunate in their agents. It is upon the agents that everything depends, and those in charge of the Sioux have gradually decreased the food supply, thus forcing self-support and inducing the younger men to scatter along the river bottoms where there is wood and water, instead of huddling in hopeless dependence about the agencies. Along the banks of the Upper Missouri and its tributaries, and on the Rose-bud and Pine Ridge Agencies, the Sioux have generally broken from the heathenish village life and taken farms up of from one to thirty acres. As I drove last fall down the west bank of the Missouri river I saw hundreds of these farms, with their wire fences, log huts with the supplementary ti-pi, stacks of grain and hay, and everywhere men working in the fields, nineteen out of twenty in citizen’s clothing. As a better class of white settlers comes in, a better feeling comes with them, and the Indian can get in no other way such education as he receives from contact with these people.

“The best of these Sioux, 3,500 of whom are now self-supporting, illustrate what we mean by ‘progressive Indians,’ and what has been done{393} for them can be done for all Indians. It is only a question of time and work. Between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountain Ranges, and in Montana, there are many thousand Indians whose condition is not encouraging, chiefly for lack of adequate effort in their behalf; while on the other hand, there are many on the Pacific coast who, under the influence of good agents and good conditions, are doing well. On farming lands Indians improve much faster than in a grazing country.

“Government paid last year $1,050,000 for beef for reservation Indians, and $1,200,000 for their education, and only twelve thousand children are at school out of the total of forty thousand who are of an age to receive education. More education and less beef is the need.

“An experience of eleven years with Indian students at Hampton, together with careful study of reservation life, has convinced me that Indians are alive to progressive influences. They are intelligent and clear thinkers, quick at technical work in trades shops, unused to steady application but willing to take hold. They do not learn English easily, and are shy of speaking it, while they have no appreciation of the value of time, and cannot endure prolonged effort; this last being a result of their lack of physical vigor, which I believe to be their chief disadvantage. In my dealings with them I have{394} treated them as men and have found them manly, frank, resentful, but not revengeful; with a keen sense of justice, ready to take punishment for wrong doing, and to speak the truth to their own hurt.

“Of 247 sent home from the Hampton school, three-fourths have done from fairly to very well. At least one-third are doing excellently. There must always be a certain percentage of poor material, and there is a curious fickleness in the average Indian; but our students are always surprising us by doing better than we expect, and this is especially the case with the girls, for whom often we hardly dare to hope. Over one-half of our returned Indians have had temporary relapses, but there are few who do not recover themselves. A majority are working for their living as teachers, mechanics, farmers, teamsters, clerks, etc.

“The need of the Indian is good agents, teachers, and farm instructors. They are born stock-raisers and their lands are the best cattle ranges in the country. With the right men in charge they could in ten years raise such a proportion of their own beef as to reduce the beef issue by one-half.

“In their way stands a short-sighted economy, and a service so organized that it changes with every change of party. The lines of work for the Indian are indicated with sufficient clearness;{395} the one thing now essential is intelligent co-operation of his friends.

“The saying that ‘there is no good Indian but a dead one’ is a cruel falsehood and has done great harm. They are a good deal like other people, and with a fair chance do well.”

That the Indian will work and that he also will learn was first demonstrated—officially—by Captain Pratt, of the regular army, who now is busily engaged in solving individual Indian problems at his noble school at Carlisle, Pa. The change in the government’s policy toward the redskins is attributed, with good reason, to Captain Pratt’s endeavors. Says Senator Dawes, who labored so hard for the bill enabling Indians to take farms instead of living in barbarous communism on reservations:

“The division line between the present policy and the past is drawn here; in the past the government tried, by fair means or foul, to rid itself of the Indian. The present policy is to make something of him. That policy had its origin almost in an accident. Eight or nine years ago the government sent Captain Pratt with warriors, covered with the blood of a merciless war, from the Indian Territory down to Florida; and Captain Pratt, in the discharge of his duty, undertook to relieve himself of the labor of keeping these warriors in idleness, no matter if the work was of no service to anybody if it would keep{396} them out of idleness. With this end in view he got permission to let them pick stones out of the streets. Then he enlisted ladies to teach them to read. Out of that experiment of Captain Pratt’s has come all the rest. Behold what a great fire a little matter has kindled!”

Senator Dawes further says the following pertinent words on the Indian question; no American can fail to realize the force of his remarks:

“If St. Paul was here and had 250,000 Indians on his hands, whom the United States had sought for one hundred years to rob of every means of obtaining a livelihood, and had helped bring up in ignorance, he never would have said to them, ‘He that will not work, shall not eat.’ You did not say that to the poor black man; you did not say that to the little children whom you sent by contribution out into the country for fresh air, and you ought not to say it to this poor, helpless race, helpless in their ignorance, and ignorant because we have fostered their ignorance. We have appropriated more money to keep them in absolute darkness, and heathenism, and idleness, than would have been required to send every one of them to college, and now we propose to turn them out. We did not relieve ourselves of the responsibility by that indifference; we have got to take them by the hand like little children and bring them up out of this ignorance, for they multiply upon our hands,{397} and their heritage is being wrenched away from them, and good men as well as bad are devising means to take it away.

“What is to become of them then? Have we done our duty to this people when we have said to them: ‘We will scatter you and let you become isolated and vagabonds on the earth, and then we will apply to you the philosophic command, “Go, take care of yourselves; we have every dollar of your possessions, every acre of your heritage; we have killed more of your fellows than there are of you left; we have burnt your little homes, and now we have arrived at the conclusion that it is time to take away from you the last foot of ground upon which you can rest, and we shall have done our duty when we command you to take care of yourselves?” ’ That is not the way I read it; I know how sincere and honest, and probably as near right everybody else is, but I am only telling how I feel. I feel just this: that every dollar of money, and every hour of effort that can be applied to each individual Indian, day and night, in season and out of season, with patience and perseverance, with kindness and with charity, is not only due him in atonement for what we have inflicted upon him in the past, but is our own obligation towards him in order that we may not have him a vagabond and a pauper, without home or occupation among us in this land.{398} One or the other is the alternative; he is to be a vagabond about our streets, begging from door to door, and plundering our citizens, or he is to be taken up and made a man among us; a citizen of this great republic, absorbed into the body politic and made a useful and influential citizen.”

President Cleveland voiced the opinion of all thoughtful and intelligent citizens when he wrote that “the conscience of the people demands that the Indians within our boundaries be fairly and honestly treated as wards of the government, and their education and civilization promoted with view to ultimate citizenship.”

With a chance to work, the Indian needs also the chance to learn, and this he is getting more and more. Whether he will learn is a question no longer open to doubt. General Armstrong’s testimony is given above. Captain Pratt says “scarcely a student but is able to take care of himself or herself among civilized people at the end of their five years’ course.” Bishop Hare, of the Episcopal Church, who has been doing splendid work among the Indians for many years, gives unwearying attention to schools on the reservations, but says, “I cannot shut my eyes to the incalculable service which well-conducted Eastern boarding-schools have done the Indians.”

When we shall have for a few years treated the Indian like a human being, there will be no “Indian question” to discuss.{399}

CHAPTER XVI.

THE PRESS.

THE editor is the great American schoolmaster. None other is worthy to be compared with him.

He is about as numerous as all other teachers combined. His lessons are given more frequently, they last longer and they cost less than any others.

To him forty-nine students in every fifty are indebted for the only post-graduate course they ever receive. Many others would have no education at all if it were not for him.

He does not always know his business so well that he could not know it better, but whatever he does know he imparts steadily, as well as some that he does not honor.

He is the only influence upon whom the public can absolutely depend to right any wrong which is being endured in spite of the efforts and oaths of legislators. When law is lazy and legislators are venal it is the editor, and the editor only, who comes to the relief of the public. The public will not do this for itself. It seems to consider{400} its duty done when it casts its ballot. More than half a century ago, when editors were not supposed to think their souls their own, the first Napoleon said, “Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.” Napoleon certainly knew the value of bayonets.

The newspaper is the universal tribunal. It is an open court and there is justice of a sort for every one there at a trifling cost, one cent, two or three, as the case may be. The editor is the lawyer to whom the poor man must of necessity come. His court is one of equity, and it is to equity courts after all that all of us are inclined to resort when we insist upon a final decision.

He is the people’s advocate. Before a law can be suggested in legislature or Congress to undo a wrong or strengthen a right, the editor has already suggested it, debated both sides of it and rendered a decision, frequently a dozen or twenty decisions, which the public are inclined to admit or regard as accurate. He sometimes gets hold of a subject wrong end first, but he will submit to correction and improvement quicker than any judge or jury on record. He may not always admit that he has changed his mind, or that he turned over, or that he has turned his coat, but the change is there all the same, to any one who will read his paper.

He is the only biographer and historian which the mass of the people can read. And he gives{401}

more information for a given amount of money than the cheapest circulating library in the world.

The editor is also invaluable as a social barometer. As Thackeray once said, “The newspaper is typical of the community in which it is encouraged and circulated; it tells its character as well as its condition.” This is awfully severe upon some communities, and upon the readers of certain papers, but it is none the less true.

Unselfish thinkers, who are concerned chiefly for the good of the community, are always the men who esteem the editor most highly. Wendell Phillips, who for more than thirty years was abused by about half the editors of the land, said, “Let me make the newspapers, and I care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in Congress.” Many years before, Thomas Jefferson, one of the founders of our government, said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should prefer the latter.”

The editor has improved more rapidly in the past twenty-five years than the representative of any other profession. Theologians, physicians and lawyers all belong to schools of one sort or other, but of late years there has come up a new school of journalism which is called independent, and it has become so popular with{402} readers of newspapers that the number of professors and students in it are increasing at a most gratifying rate.

James Gordon Bennett, Jr., explains one difference clearly when he says: “There is one grand distinction between journals—some are newspapers, some are organs. An organ is simply a daily pamphlet published in the interest of some party, or persons, or some agitation.” But the organs are not as numerous as they used to be.

Who would have imagined any time before the late civil war that in any great political campaign preceding a general election in this country there would be scores and almost hundreds of independent newspapers. The time was when a newspaper could not exist unless it were a party or personal organ. But the newspaper has gradually risen from being a mere partisan or personal mouthpiece to being the mouthpiece of its own proprietor. At the present day no properly qualified journalist need attach himself to either party for financial reasons. If he is competent to make a good newspaper he is quite free to express his own opinions regardless of whom he may help or hurt, and the position is so delightful that a great many editors rush into it apparently for the mere pleasure of expressing their own opinions. During the last general election the scarcity of strong party organs, even in the largest{403} cities where they were supposed most to be needed, was a matter of general comment among practical politicians, and it is known that some newspapers changed hands solely for the purpose of being turned into party organs and that it was frequently so difficult to obtain control of existing journals that new ones had to be started for the sole purpose of supplying their respective parties with mouthpieces. This may be considered a compliment to the personal interest of the average journalist or to his personal ability. But, whichever it is, it is highly creditable to the profession, and it is a result which could not have been hoped for twenty-five years ago.

Now-a-days every journalist of actual ability, no matter which party he belongs to, wishes that he may become owner of an independent newspaper. It is impossible for him not to see that the independent newspaper is not only the most quoted and the most talked about, but the most profitable. The paper which is read by both parties is sure of more subscribers, purchasers and advertisers than that which draws all its inspiration from the platform formed by a single convention. The independent editor hears himself quoted in Congress by men of both parties; and these same men are quite likely to grumble and swear within a week to find themselves castigated by the same men whose words of wisdom they recently availed themselves of.{404}

The possibilities of the press for good, now that independence in journalism is practicable and also a business temptation, cannot be overestimated. Public opinion can be created more rapidly by daily appeals and arguments which the newspaper reader can quietly look over by himself, pausing whenever he may like to think over what he has read, than anything that can appear in campaign speeches or magazine essays or books by the most noted writers and specialists. The editor, as a rule, has dropped the old stilted form of the essay, and puts his arguments in the ordinary colloquial form, with homely illustrations and forcible applications so far as words go. If it didn’t seem like complimenting him too highly and making him vain, it would not be unfair to say that his method is that in which the more valuable portion of the four gospels was written. He has learned that political power is no longer in the hands of the learned classes, but that all portions of the community feel and read and think; and that, as every man has a vote, the larger the audience he talks to, the simpler and clearer must be his arguments. Consequently the press is giving us a class of debaters such as the world never knew before, and such as no parliamentary body in the world possesses even now or can hope to possess for some time to come.

With increased freedom from party reins and{405} ties, the editor is continually increasing and enlarging the interests to which he addresses himself. There is scarcely a newspaper in the United States at the present day which restricts itself entirely to political subjects. Anything in the nature of human interests, social economies, moral reforms, and even the tastes and amusements of the people is a fair subject for the editor. He is not only a teacher; he is a preacher, and he preaches six days in the week instead of one. In fact, he frequently extends his ministrations into the seventh day also, to the great annoyance of preachers who occupy more dignified positions, but with not so large a congregation.

The press hereafter must be the principal moral, political and social influence of the country. There is no way to put it backward. It is being more and more trusted—more and more read—more and more depended upon to be equal to every emergency; and, to do it justice, it seldom disappoints expectations—a statement that cannot be made with any shadow of truth of any class of statesmen, except the very best. Years ago Lamartine was laughed at as a dreamer when he said, “Newspapers will ultimately engross all literature; there will be nothing else published but newspapers,” but Lamartine’s prophecy is being rapidly fulfilled. The newspaper is invading every department of literature,{406} and giving the reader the best at the lowest price.

There is a great hubbub once in a while in courts and among lawyers about what they are pleased to style trial by newspaper, and it is astonishing that before a court can reach any important case, the conduct of the case, its merits and its probable conclusion have been so well foreshadowed by the press that interest in the trial itself is comparatively slight. So general is the resort to newspapers for information and opinion, that a short time ago when one of the famous boodle aldermen of New York was called up for trial, it was impossible, under the jury laws of the State, to find even one single competent juror in a city the population of which was one million and a half. Everybody had formed opinions, and the opinions generally agreed. They had seen the testimony—seen it discussed from all sides and all points—discussed so clearly, that they had no reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused. And all this they saw in the newspapers.

It begins to look as if the time might come when lawyers, courts, jurors, judges, would all be supplanted by the editor, and as if soon afterward teachers and preachers also might feel occasion to shake in their shoes. There is no danger in such an event of the editor becoming conceited. He always has a regulating principle close at{407} hand. It is right in the counting-room at the book-keeper’s desk. The public can change its opinion of a newspaper as quickly as it can of a political candidate; and when it does, the editor knows of it at once by a class of figures that never are allowed to lie.

Because all this is true—and everybody admits that it is—a great many men of more ambition than brains are attempting to be full-fledged editors at a single bound. “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” Angels, who have unequalled opportunities of knowing the true inwardness of things, would think twice, or oftener, before attempting to be editors, without first going through a laborious apprenticeship. It seems the easiest thing in the world for a man who has a lot of money of his own, or, better still, some money which belongs to other people, to start a newspaper and air his own opinions—which consist principally of partialities and prejudices—but the end is sure to be disastrous. Many daily papers have started in our large cities and reached a large temporary circulation, which afterward disappeared in the mists of oblivion and left nothing but debts behind. A successful newspaper is the result of natural growth and accretion.

Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, says: “The result of any newspaper enterprise depends upon the character{408} of the man who engages in it—his capacity to discern correctly and to adapt his paper to the wants and needs of the audience it is meant to serve.”

Whitelaw Reid, editor of the New York Tribune, and now Minister to France, says: “Every great newspaper represents an intellectual, a moral and a material growth—the accretion of successive efforts from year to year—until it has become an institution and a power. It is the voice of the power that the twenty or thirty years of honest dealing with the public and just discussion of current questions have given.”

Horace Greeley, the founder of Mr. Reid’s paper, said truthfully that “The office of a newspaper is first to give the history of its time, and afterward to deduce such theories or truths from it as shall be of universal application.” Can any mere peddler of news and scandals, or any man whose sole gratification is a desire to see his own impressions in print, live up to this standard?

Conscience, application and money, as well as intellect, is necessary to the successful management of a newspaper. George W. Childs, editor of the Philadelphia Ledger, snatched the sympathies of all decent members of the editorial fraternity when he said: “Few persons who peruse the morning papers think of the amount of capital{409} invested, the labor involved, and the care and anxiety incident to the preparation of the sheet which is served so regularly.” Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Sun, says: “The legal responsibility of newspapers is a reality, but their moral responsibility is greater and more important.” E. L. Godkin, editor of the New York Evening Post, says: “News is an impalpable thing—an airy abstraction; to make it a merchantable commodity, somebody has to collect it, condense it, and clothe it in language, and its quality depends upon the character of the men employed in doing this.”

George William Curtis, editor of Harper’s Weekly, admitting the tremendous influence of the press, voices the sentiment of successful editors everywhere when he says: “If the newspaper is the school of the people, and if upon popular education and intelligence the success and prosperity of popular government depends, there is no function in society which requires more conscience as well as ability.”

Evidently newspaper men who amount to anything realize their responsibilities. The press is not “all right,” but it seems as far from wrong as conscience and common sense can make any earthly institution.{410}

CHAPTER XVII.

THE SCHOOL-ROOM.

THE late lamented Sam Weller once spoke of a schoolboy, who, having learned the alphabet, wondered whether it was worth going through so much to learn so little. The same reflection has come to millions of Americans as they thought of how much time they had spent in schooling and how little they knew when they got out.

There are parts of our vast country where the people are lucky enough to have teachers who know so little about the theories of teaching that they impart to their pupils more information than the law demands. But in the cities and large towns where teaching has been elevated, or more properly speaking, reduced to a science, where the most money is spent on the schools and where the school terms are longest, the prevalence of “how not to do it” is simply appalling.

The country boy who goes to school only four or five months in the year knows quite as much as his city cousin who annually has nine or ten months of schooling. What does the city pupil{411} get for the double outlay of time, bad air, back-ache and discipline?

As he cannot make any subsequent use of his accumulation of bad air and back-ache, his entire gain over the country boy would seem to be in discipline. What does this discipline do for him in the adult life for which school life is a preparation?

Does it make him a better business man? No. If it does, why is it that the majority of business men in our large cities are from the rural districts? A few months ago I happened to be a guest at a dinner party at which more than a dozen men prominent in New York business and professional life came together. A question being asked about a social custom of thirty years before, it gradually transpired that not one of the party had been born or brought up in the city of New York, a city of which all now were permanent citizens.

I have told this story to prominent citizens of Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati, and in return received long lists of the great men of those cities who came from the country. With some fear and trembling I tried the same story in Boston at a large public dinner, but the man to whom I told it—he was a man who seemed to know everybody’s antecedents—replied that not more than one in ten of Boston’s Brahmans or live business men were born at the Hub.{412}

Congress is fairly a representative body, but if you will look at the book which gives biographical sketches of all the members, you will be astonished to find how few cities and large towns are represented by men born in them. Nearly all the members were born and brought up in the country. Occasionally you will find that some representative or senator was born in Philadelphia or New York, but if you look at the head of the page you will discover that he is representing a rural district of some State other than his own.

You will find it the same way in the learned professions. In law, medicine and theology, art, literature and science, the men who are most prominent at all the great centres of education and intelligence date back to some farmhouse and country school. Most of these men went to college in the course of time, but whenever you find one of them and talk with him so long that he feels inclined to unbosom himself to you, you discover that the amount of schooling he had at his birthplace was very small. As most of these men have passed the period of their boyhood by at least a quarter of a century, it is not surprising to hear them tell of school years consisting of only three or four months, and of school-room exercises where the number of text-books were so few that many of the lessons were delivered{413} orally by the teacher, and boys and girls took turns with one another’s books.

If discipline, school discipline, counts for anything, these professions should be full of city-bred men. But they are not, except at the bottom—way down at the bottom. City schools graduate an immense number of young men who enter seminaries and especially departments of colleges, to gain a special education, but somehow these are not the men who are prominent in the new blood of their respective professions.

If discipline, so called, does not make the city-schooled youth superior to his country cousin, what is it good for? Well, it is good to keep the school-room in order. The larger the school the more necessary it is for a teacher to maintain order. In a building containing two or three thousand children, as many school-buildings in the larger cities do, rigid discipline is absolutely necessary to this end. But, to come back to original facts, why does it take seven or eight years to impart a common, a very common, school course which any bright boy or girl of fifteen years could master alone and unaided in a quarter of the time?

School systems, where there are any, seem designed for the special purpose of making the school a machine which should do credit to the individuals who run it. This would be excusable with an actual machine made of wood and{414} metal, but children are not tough enough to be put to such use. Besides, there is better use for them. It is not odd that teachers should look out for themselves and for their own records in the management of schools. If they don’t look out for Number One they will be an exception to all the rest of humanity. Nevertheless, compared with the children, the teachers’ number one as about one to fifty, and their importance should be judged from this standpoint of comparison.

School systems of study seem based on the capacity of the stupidest pupils. All the others must crawl because the stupid ones cannot walk.

This isn’t right. If armies were trained in that way we never would have any soldiers. Let schools, like regiments, have their awkward squads to be specially trained, so that they may catch up with those who are proficient.

What are the branches in which the common schools give elementary instructions? Spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and grammar. The farther from the large city, the surer the student is of getting any instruction beyond those branches during the first six or seven years of a common-school course. He may be qualified by home reading to go into the natural sciences or into mathematics at an early age, but that isn’t part of the system. It seldom{415} pleases the teacher of a graded school to be told of such acquirements of a new pupil. The school exists not to improve the intelligence of the pupil from the standpoint at which the teacher finds it, but to give him such instruction as the teacher is already detailed and instructed by law to give. A boy may forget all he knows of natural science, or algebra, or geometry, in the many years in which he is drilled in elementary studies leading up to the branches which he already understands.

In the country districts boys are often fit to pass rigid examinations for matriculation at college at the age of fifteen years. But the boy who does not begin to go to school until he is eight years of age finds himself at fifteen, in a city, merely fit to enter a high-school, and not a very high school either. Some of the most noted men in our country’s history graduated from college at sixteen or seventeen years. The curriculum of a college in those days was not as high as now. Nevertheless, the graduates certainly gave a very good account of themselves from their earliest entrance into public life. One of them was Alexander Hamilton, who graduated at seventeen, and who elaborated a system of financial management which a whole century of successive Secretaries of the Treasury have not considered themselves competent to improve upon. A very long list of men of similar prominence{416} might be given, but such illustrations are not necessary. Any intelligent man who has been to school knows that a great deal of his class-room time has been entirely at his own disposal, for the lessons were easily memorized; and therefore his hands were idle and Satan found something for them to do. The worst boys in school can often be found among the scholars who stand highest in the classes, and for the very natural reason that there is nothing to occupy their minds during a large portion of the school time.

Seriously, what is there about the elementary branches, as taught in our common schools almost anywhere, that should consume such an immense amount of time? In the Southern States a number of the despised blacks, children of slaves who themselves could date back their ancestors from generations of slaves, became quite proficient in elementary branches during a year or two, lounging about military camps in the capacity of servants. Special schools were founded, as soon as the war ended, by missionary societies, which prepared courses of study which they considered within the comprehension of the Anglo-African mind. Of course there were a great many stupid blacks; but, while some of these stupid children were making faces at text-books and drawing inartistic pictures on slates, their old fathers and mothers were learning from{417}

the same children’s text-books more rapidly than the best children in the public schools of the North are allowed to learn.

Sir John Lubbock complains that “A thousand hours in the most precious seed-time of life of millions of children spent in learning that i must follow e in conceive, and precede it in believe; that two e’s must, no one knows why, come together in proceed and exceed, and be separated in precede and accede; that uncle must be spelled with a c, but ankle with a k,—while lessons in health and thrift, sewing and cooking, which should make the life of the poor tolerable, and elementary singing and drawing which should make it pleasant, and push out lower and degrading amusements, are in many cases almost vainly trying to gain admission.”

Take the course all through, and what is there about it that should require any great consumption of time? Reading certainly is not hard to acquire. Children out of school learn it in spite of any efforts to hold them back. Spelling is learned more effectually through reading than from any text-book. Writing requires only a model of which copies may be made, for there is no business man in New York or in any other large city who writes a copy-book hand. If he did, he would be considered incompetent for whatever position he may occupy. The first thing that a boy must learn on leaving school is to unlearn{418} his writing-lessons. Arithmetic undoubtedly requires considerable practice to make the pupil perfect and quick in computations, but as it consists entirely of applications of the first four rules, why is it that so much time is spent over the text-books and very abstract propositions and problems? Text-books of arithmetic seem to be skilfully designed for the purpose of keeping the child from practical knowledge on the subject as long as possible. Examples that are called practical are given in many of these books, but only after a large amount of figuring, the purpose of which the pupil is not allowed to clearly understand. A man whose education in figures has been obtained on the sidewalk with a piece of chalk will cypher more accurately and quickly any problem of ordinary nature that may be given him than his own son or daughter who has been several years in school, because he understands the relations and purposes of the factors, which never seem to be impressed upon the child.

General F. A. Walker, once superintendent of the census and now president of the Boston Institute of Technology, says: “The old-fashioned readiness and correctness of cyphering have been to a large degree sacrificed by the methods which it is now proposed to reform. A false arithmetic has grown up and has largely crowded{419} out of place that true arithmetic, which is nothing but the art of numbers.”

Geography is so largely a matter of memory of the eye that no man who was denied the privilege of studying this science while he was at school ever thinks it necessary to spend a great amount of time over it afterward, even if his business requires him to have a practical knowledge of the subject. It is simply a question of sight and of memory, just as is the case with knowledge of localities which he may visit either to a great or small extent, yet geography in the public schools is divided into two, three, and sometimes five different books, by the use of which the pupil goes again and again over the same lessons, obtaining in the end no more information than that he would get by a few days’ deliberate study of an atlas or a set of maps.

Prof. Geikie, a recognized authority on this subject, says: “Every question of geography should be one which requires for its answer that the children have actually seen something with their own eyes and taken note of it.” This is reasonable; it would also be practicable if globes and large maps were in the class-rooms, but generally they are conspicuous only by their absence.

It is quite true that grammar must occupy considerable of the pupils’ time. For all the persons who have studied it, there seem very few of any age at the present time who are able{420} to apply the principles of this science in such a manner that they habitually write and speak correctly. But this isn’t so much the fault of the pupil and of the teacher as of the text-books from which the science shall be studied. Good example, from which adults learn grammar more correctly and rapidly than in any other way, seems to be considered too good for children, so they are given text-books with definitions utterly beyond their comprehension—definitions so subdivided that there is nothing which the intelligent teacher so dreads as a few intelligent questions on the subject from a pupil on the grammar-lesson of the day. I have seen an intelligent man, himself a college graduate, and a public speaker of high reputation and elegant style, labor with one of his children over a lesson in grammar, and finally give up in despair and toss the book across the room. If a man of such character is unable to understand a grammatical text-book, what can be expected of the child?

The greater the scholar or teacher, the greater is his contempt for text-books of grammar. Old Roger Ascham, tutor to Queen Elizabeth of England, delights in saying that his distinguished pupil “never yet tooke Greek or Latin Grammer in her hande after the first declininge of a Noun and a Verb.” A more celebrated teacher, John Locke, complained that “Our children are forced to stick unreasonably in{421} grammatical flats and shallows.” Dr. Parkhurst said recently: “The way for a boy to talk correctly is to talk subject to correction—not to apply himself to linguistic anatomy, surgery and dissection. I studied grammar in the ordinary way about three weeks—just long enough to find out what a genius some people can show for putting asunder what God hath joined together. It is a splendid device for using up a boy’s time and souring his disposition.”

Well, all this routine is being imposed upon the children, and the little wretches are losing spirit and impulse through the delay to which the cleverer ones are subjected and the lack of clearness which causes the stupider ones to despair. Nothing whatever is done toward training the senses and physical intelligence of the child. They do this sort of thing abroad, but for some reason Americans are not allowed to follow the foreigners’ example. Apparently our children have a divine call to whatever handiwork may fall to their lot thereafter in the world, for certainly they get as little training in it as the twelve apostles had in theology before they were called to preach and teach. The French or German, the Swedish child, and even many a Russian child, is taught to use his hands and his eyes and all his senses that can be applied to practical affairs, but the American child gets no opportunity of that sort, except in{422} the few schools which conform more or less to the kindergarten system. We have a few technical schools in large cities, but they are regarded as means to finish a course of education instead of part of the ordinary elementary instruction.

When technical education, which means simply the use of the hands and eyes, is spoken of to members of Boards of Education and Superintendents of common school systems in large cities, the result is generally an impatient gesture or word. There is no room for that sort of thing, we are told; beside, it is a mere notion of theorists. The general run of children are not equal to it and would be more troubled than benefited by it.

Well, experience is more valuable than argument in answering assertions. A few years ago a man who had scarcely ever done any work in the school-room brought some theories on the subject of technical education over here from Germany, although he was an American. He went to Philadelphia and started a little class for the instruction of teachers. The majority of common school teachers sneered at his theories, so he proposed to silence all further opposition by a practical test. He started a model school for the purpose of demonstrating that what he asserted was practicable. He did not select the brighter pupils in the public schools, but went{423} deliberately into the streets and picked up at random a lot of little gutter-snipes who had never been to school at all, or who, if they had, were persistent truants ever since. In a short time people saw—for it was necessary to have them see in order to make them believe at all—these ignorant children of the street doing better technical work in several directions than could be found anywhere else in the city except in establishments paying high prices for artistic labor. They carved wood, they modelled in clay, they made designs on paper, they stamped leather and brass and even showed some capacity for engraving and coloring in the direction of the higher arts.

The effect of this display should have been to have given the system prominence and practical demonstration in the public schools, but it amounted to little except the gathering of a few wide-awake teachers who wished to learn to teach as the theorist had been teaching. A few of those who took the course went into public school work elsewhere and have succeeded admirably ever since. In the city of Elizabeth, New Jersey, any child who wishes can now receive a technical education under the direction of the common school authorities. The work began in a single school with a single teacher. It has since been extended to all the public schools of the city, and two teachers work hard from{424} morning until night. A strange development of this course of teaching deserves notice. Elizabeth is a city containing a great many large manufacturing establishments, and the modest young woman who had charge of the technical education in the public schools was amazed one day to receive a written request from a number of master mechanics in different establishments for a night school for their own benefit, for which they were willing to pay freely; and some of them told the teacher that their attention to the subject was first attracted by their own children doing clearer and more rapid work in the line of design than they, these master mechanics, who had been in the business all their lives, had ever yet succeeded in doing. So for months there was visible the astonishing spectacle of a lot of middle-aged men being taught their own business by a young woman who herself knew nothing whatever of their business.

The helplessness of the average American teacher when the subject of technical education is mentioned was shown amusingly a few years ago when one of the several superintendents who have general charge of the New York city schools devised a system of teaching from what he called object lessons. He prepared a manual and a set of charts and the Board of Education in compliment to him purchased a great many and placed them in the class-rooms. But it was almost impossible{425} to have them used unless the superintendent himself took the work in hand. The teachers didn’t understand it. They said they couldn’t get the hang of it. The truth was they had never had any education of the same kind themselves and the matter was as foreign to their intelligence as Hebrew or Sanscrit would have been. But, mark the difference; when news of this system penetrated the wilds of the rowdy West, demands and orders for the material to work with came East rapidly, and I was told that a single State in the new West made more use of this system than all the Eastern and Middle States combined. The West knows what it wants; the teachers are closer to the children than in the East. This may be one of the blessings, or perhaps penalties, of life in a new country, but, whatever it may be, the results seem to justify a wish that all of us could be transplanted to a new country, for at least a little while, from the older centres of our American civilization.

General Walker, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says: “The introduction of shopwork into the public system of education cannot fail to have a most beneficial influence in promoting a respect for labor and in overcoming the false and pernicious passion of our young people for crowding themselves into overdone and underpaid departments where they{426} may escape manual exertion.” Col. Auchmuty, the philanthropic founder of New York’s great “Trades School,” says: “What scientific schools are to the engineer and architect—what the law school and the medical school are to the lawyer and the physician, or what the business college is to the clerk—trade schools must be to the future mechanics.” President Butler, late of Columbia College’s faculty, now president of the Industrial Association’s great model school, says: “Manual training does not claim admittance as a favor; it demands it as a right. The future course of study will not be a Procrustean structure—absolutely and unqualifiedly alike for all localities and for all schools; but it will have in it a principle, and that principle will be founded on a scientific basis—the highest duty of the educator will be its application to his own particular needs and demands.”

Is the experience of practical educators like these to be cast aside in favor of the antiquated theories of teaching now in vogue?

Any one who wonders why country boys become prominent city men, and why there are about as many Western men in New York city in business as there are men from the East, can find out by looking closely to the difference between city and country systems of education. If a country village is too small to have a high school, it is nevertheless generally the case that{427} the higher branches are taught to a large extent in the commonest of schools. College graduates find the profession of teaching a very handy means of paying their expenses while looking about the country and seeing where to begin the practice of law or medicine, or perhaps drop into the pulpit. Boys and girls of twelve or fourteen years may be found studying physiology, algebra and geometry, natural sciences and chemistry in schools all over the new West at a time when children of the same age in the large Eastern cities are slowly wrestling with the lessons and elementary text-books of geography and grammar and arithmetic. When competitive examinations for West Point cadetships are held in the West the general trouble is that the candidates are too young to enter the military academy even could they pass the necessary examination and succeed in winning the competitive prize. I saw such an examination myself in one Western town, which was narrowed down to two boys. These youngsters, the ablest of all the applicants, were aged respectively thirteen and fourteen years. They passed rigid examinations in mathematics, with scarcely a mark against them. That is more than could be done by any boys of similar age in the public schools of New York and Brooklyn and Philadelphia, the three largest cities in the Union.

The rapidity with which children pass through{428} text-books in the newer States and more sparsely settled districts is the cause of the great number of so-called colleges which are found all over our country. There are more colleges by title in the United States than in all the rest of the world beside. Their standards are never those of the universities of Europe—seldom of Yale or Harvard. But they are higher than those of the ordinary high schools, and the young man or young woman who passes through them has a very fair general education, and is fitted to go on by private reading to almost any extent. In the larger cities of the East such opportunities are few. There is, perhaps, a single large institution in each city, like the High School of Philadelphia or the Normal College of New York, at which girls are educated, or the College of the City of New York, to which the better boys are sent for a full college course if they desire it. But these same facilities are demanded and obtained in the newer cities at a rate that would astonish the Eastern person who chose to look into the subject.

The most pressing need of our common school system is more teachers. With more teachers greater personal attention could be paid to each pupil, and smaller time would be required for the ordinary school course. In the cities it is the rule that boys and girls must leave school at a very early age in order to help earn a living{429} for their respective families. The majority of them are children of parents who are very poor, who have to work terribly hard and save in every possible way in order to keep their families from starvation. Consequently the children go to work as soon as they are large enough to be accepted by any employer at any sort of occupation. Their subsequent opportunities for learning anything are necessarily limited. They must learn by general reading if at all, except for such few opportunities as are granted them by night schools, a beneficent class of educational institutions, which those who most need them are least able to attend, for how much studying can a boy or girl do after nine or ten hours of work in a counting-room or shop or factory? With more teachers our city children could obtain a fair high school education at the age of fourteen, and be better able to make their way in the world at whatever their work might be.

The best finishing school that the people of the United States have ever been able to avail themselves of is the course of home reading which one society or other has within a few years devised, and which some of them are conducting with great care and success. Systems of reading and consecutive study are devised, books are supplied, individuals are selected to receive and inspect examination papers to show the capacity of the students and to give suggestions according as{430} the students may seem to require, and in this way one single society has now eighty thousand students, with more than a hundred instructors and inspectors. This system might be definitely extended at very small expense by the various States as part of the local system of education. Until the blunders of the common school system are modified or done away with, it is as little as the State can do to give an intelligent child this much of consolation and assistance for the time that it has been compelled to lose by incompetent tuition in the public schools.{431}

CHAPTER XVIII.

RAILROADS.

THE railroad problem is one of the most complicated and vital questions of the day. Nothing, perhaps, is so typical of the ingenuity, skill and colossal power of our modern civilization as the railroad train—a solitary man holding the lever which controls this tremendous mass of wood and metal, with its freight of goods and passengers rushing past us at the rate of a mile a minute.

The growth of the railroad is one of the greatest marvels of this wonderful century. England got her first road from the Romans in 415 A.D. To move the Roman armies it was necessary to have the “Roman Way,” and the remains of those wonderful works still excite the admiration of all beholders. The dangers and delays of roads in the middle ages, and even in the stage-coaching days of our fathers, beset as they were with difficulties and terrorized by highwaymen, all seem to us to belong to some remote past.

It is a new tribute to the genius of that imperial{432} people who swayed the world in the earlier ages of Christianity that even now, with all our facilities of modern travel, our people are beginning to realize the necessity of roadways approximating those which they constructed. The farmer often has to haul the products of his fields many miles to reach the railway station, and the time and the effort needed to get his wheat or corn over tortuous and defective roadways entails a very serious loss. In many parts of the country the roads in fact are so impassable in certain months that the farmer is unable to transport his grain to the railway at a time, perhaps, when the markets are high, and is forced to hold it until the season opens, and to dispose of it at a much lower price. There is a general awakening of public sentiment to the necessity for improvement in this direction, and for some years to come there will probably be quite as much effort expended in the bettering of country roads as in the further improvement and extension of our already colossal railroad system.

Until the opening of the railway era, commerce and travel followed the natural lines of transportation—the water-ways. There were, it is true, a few exceptional instances like those of the ancient caravan routes which crossed the lines of the great rivers and built up inland cities, but the operation of natural laws in time{433}

prevailed, and these cities fell into ruins, while others sprang up along the coasts and water-ways. Even after the introduction of railways, the cost of transportation thereby was so heavy that the water-ways still commanded the general direction of commerce, and it is only since the wonderful cheapening of railway rates—due to the enormous growth of the traffic and the introduction of more heavily loaded cars and other economies—that the iron way has dominated the water-way and subverted what had been one of the maxims of commercial development from the earliest times.

At the present time, where the question of time is not important, the carriage of passengers and goods by water is so much cheaper than by rail as to survive in competition. Where the passenger’s time is of value, or perishable goods are carried, or the merchant is in a hurry to receive his consignment, the railway, following virtually the shortest distance between the two points—piercing mountains, spanning ravines and crossing the rivers, is, of course, the necessary means of communication. Most of the great cities that have sprung up within the memory of people still living, like those of old, are reared on the sea-coasts or the shores of great lakes, or on the banks of navigable streams, the facilities of transportation by water conspiring to create these centres of activity and industry. Where{434} a number of railroad lines concentrate, a great city may spring up—like Indianapolis; or where great manufacturing facilities exist, as in the juxtaposition of the coal, ore and flux—as at Birmingham, Alabama. But these are comparatively few in number, and have not such limits of expansion as cities which may be reached by water. Aside from their commercial disadvantages, the inland cities present difficult problems, among the most important being that of successful sewage and sanitation.

In this country, indeed, most of the earlier railroads were projected merely to connect navigable streams with one another, or with the coast, their founders evidently regarding rail transportation as an auxiliary of the natural ways, and not as a great rival which was in a very few years to dominate them. In other instances, railways in the early days were simply built along the banks of the rivers, because the people found that when the latter were frozen in the winter, they needed some other means of transportation. These scattered bits of road here and there were, in after years, as the possibilities of railroad development began to dawn upon the minds of far-seeing men, united by connecting links and reorganized into roads of much greater length. In fact some of the most difficult features of the railroad problem of the present day grew out of the failure of projectors of railroads{435} in the early days to grasp the meaning of the system which they were instituting. France, Germany, Belgium and other European cities have had no serious railway problem. The English people, however, have passed through very nearly the same experience as ours, and we are now solving the same questions which puzzled their heads nearly a generation ago.

The immunity of the continental nations from many difficult railway questions arises from the fact that they began building railroads after England and our own country had undertaken them, and after we had sufficiently developed their possibilities to show the absurdity of many of the ideas that prevailed when they were inaugurated. It was supposed that the first companies chartered would build a railway just as they would build a highway, and that the iron way would be open to competitive traffic by individuals or combinations of individuals, just as the ordinary highway was open. In the charter of the first railway company which built a line, the Manchester and Liverpool Railway, and in fact in all the charters which were granted in England prior to 1829, and the charters granted in this country in the same period, this idea is clearly expressed. The Ithaca and Owego Railway, now a portion of the great New York Central trunk line, was chartered in 1828, and one section of the charter contains this provision:{436} “All persons paying the toll aforesaid may, with suitable and proper carriages, use and travel upon the said railroad, subject to such rules and regulations as the said corporators are authorized to make by the ninth section of this act.”

It is obvious that the notion entertained by the founders of this railway was that they would simply own a turnpike with rails upon it, and would derive their revenue from the tolls charged upon the vehicles that should be rolled over it by individuals. It was not until railway building had proceeded for about a dozen years that it became evident, from the nature of the power employed and the higher rate of speed—unforeseen until then—that might be attained, that the railway company must monopolize the service over the road they built. This rendered necessary an entire revolution of the principles upon which all future charters should be granted. But the fundamental mistake was made. The continental peoples began to build their railways after this fact was discovered, and therefore had the benefit of their predecessors’ mistakes, and adopted precautions which have relieved them of many awkward complications.

Besides this, another mistake of ignorance was the belief that railways would be used exclusively for the transportation of passengers, and it was long after the first rails had been laid that the{437} notion that “light goods” might be conveyed, dawned upon their minds.

Any man who should have told these pioneers of the railway world that the United States would possess in the year 1889 a hundred and sixty thousand miles of railroad, enough to belt the world seven times at the Equator, would have been regarded as a lunatic. The ownership of this vast property is represented by stocks and bonds aggregating $9,000,000,000. They receive yearly from the public for carrying passengers and freights the sum of $1,000,000,000 and, after paying the expenses of their operation, including the wages of more than 1,000,000 employés, they have left an available revenue of $415,000,000. More than one of the larger companies has a revenue greater than that of the United States government was thirty years ago. To earn this enormous sum the roads work night and day, seven days a week. Through the darkest and stormiest winter midnight, as well as through the pleasantest summer afternoon, the locomotive fires are kept alight and the wheels revolve unceasingly along the rails. The work they accomplish is something startling in the aggregate. In the year 1887, the latest for which the complete figures are at hand, the railroads of the country carried 428,000,000 passengers, travelling 10,500,000 miles, a distance equal to 450 times around the globe. The freight carried in the{438} same year amounted to 552,000,000 tons, and the distance traversed 62,000,000 miles.

It is a commonplace to speak of what the railroads have done in the way of opening up the country and bringing the blessings of civilization into the wilderness. In the Western country, where the people formerly wore homespun or the coarsest fabrics of Eastern looms, the women now receive weekly fashion plates still damp from the press, and every cross-roads store has in stock the latest patterns, not only from the great cities of our own land, but from the centres of European fashion. The postal system follows along the iron way, the metropolitan newspaper reaches the most obscure hamlet daily, and a chapter might be written upon the growth of the railway postal service alone. The telegraph lines enter new territory with the railway, putting the dweller in the remotest regions within reach of instantaneous communication with all parts of the world.

The effect of the railroad in thus multiplying and exchanging not only material products, but distributing the news of the day and bringing the inhabitants of the Pacific slope and those of the Atlantic seaboard into daily intellectual intercourse, and thus welding all into one homogeneous people, is a theme which has yet to be fully dealt with by the pen of the historian. From Maine to Texas, go where you will, you find the people{439} read the same news, discuss the same questions, and are subjected to the same vivifying influences, the ideas of the farmer on the borders broadening in even pace with those of the dwellers in the cities until such a thing as provincialism is unknown on this continent. Indeed, foreigners who visit our shores, who have a taste for the picturesque, complain of this monotony, and bewail the fact that the American town or hamlet, whether situated on the borders of the great northern lakes or on the torrid shores of the Gulf, presents essentially the same exterior aspect and identical social conditions.

It would be too much to expect that this great railway system, with its unprecedented army of employés and the revenues of an empire, should be an unadulterated blessing; that it should not carry some alloy in its composition. Like most humane institutions, even the most beneficent, it has wrought mischiefs as well as brought great benefits. Until now the needs of our rapidly developing country were such that communities everywhere were clamoring for roads which would bring to them what they needed from the outside world and place within reach markets for their own products. Consequently, every possible inducement was offered for the building of railway lines, and without surrounding their construction with such safeguards as had already been found necessary in old and thickly populated{440} countries. The result has been in many parts of the country an over-building of lines which has entailed subsequent losses and difficulties and the creation of abuses and complications which together constitute what has come to be known as “the railway problem.” It is clear that what might be broadly called the constructive period in our railway system is ended, and that we have now fairly entered upon a period of restriction and regulation. The people have now to learn to subdue and control these great Frankensteins of their own creation.

As Mr. Frederick Taylor, President of the Western National Bank of New York, who has all his life been a close student of the railway question, says: “Though the railroads have probably contributed more than all other agencies combined to make the United States what they are, no one will deny that the incalculable benefit which we have derived from their growth and development has not been, and is not, wholly ‘unmixed of evil.’ Leaving out other considerations, it is not unfair to say that three-quarters of all the legislative corruption from which we have suffered during the past fifty years have been directly chargeable to the railways; and that a very large proportion, perhaps nearly as much as half, of the litigation that has occupied our courts during the same period has been directly connected with railway matters.”{441}

The great panic of 1873 was directly due to the over-building of railroads. Following it came several years of terrible business depression throughout the country, in which time and money was spent in trying to clear away the wreck. Hundreds of railroad companies were bankrupted and loss and suffering were entailed upon hundreds of thousands of persons who had invested their savings in these enterprises. In no end of instances the stocks of the companies were wiped out of existence entirely, the roads sold under foreclosure and reorganized. Again, in 1877, when the country was just beginning to recover from the shock, it was disturbed and depressed for a long time by the trouble between the railroad companies and their workmen, which in some cases culminated in riot and bloodshed. Another period of artificially stimulated railroad building reached its culmination in the panic of 1884, and two years later widespread strikes among railway operatives again disturbed the entire business of the country. During all this period the legislatures of the various States and the National Congress were busy with legislation intended to modify or remedy the evils complained of.

The question presents such difficulties that many students, including Mr. Taylor, can find a solution of the question only in the suggestion of national control of the railroads throughout{442} the country. Mr. Taylor’s idea, however, is that they should not be owned and operated by the nation, but that the government should have the same sort of control which it now exercises over the national banks; in other words, that the national railway commission should supervise the railroads with the same authority which the Treasury Department exercises over the national banking system.

The unrestricted building of railroads under the provisions of the general railroad acts passed in most of the States, following that adopted in New York in 1850, has given rise to destructive competition and brought about some of the knottiest points in the railroad problem. It was held for many years, and is even now contended by a great many people, that the building of railroads, like any other business, should be left free to the unrestricted enterprise of individuals and associations of individuals. “If a lot of fellows see fit to put their money into building a railroad where there is not enough traffic to sustain it, and the road goes into bankruptcy, that is their affair, not ours; it is their money that is lost.” That is about how the average citizen talks on this subject. There could be no greater mistake.

In the first place the railroads are public highways, and as such must be supervised by the community. When in ordinary conversation in this country we speak of a “road,” from Chicago{443} to St. Paul for instance, it is always understood that a railroad is meant. In the older countries the mention of “roads” is understood to refer to a turnpike. The reason for the difference of usage is obvious. In old and settled countries the highways were in existence for centuries before rails were laid, and the word “road” therefore continues to hold its primary meaning. With us it is the railroad line which first enters into new territory, and it may be years before the contiguous region is sufficiently settled to render an ordinary wagon-road necessary.

The vital fallacy in the popular argument that “competition will settle this question of too many roads” lies in assuming that a railroad is, like an individual, private enterprise. If a man starts a hat shop in a neighborhood already well supplied with hatters, and he is bankrupted in the struggle for business, that is the end of him. He has lost his money and the shop is closed and the equilibrium of supply and demand in hats is restored. But when a railroad becomes bankrupted it does not go out of existence in that way. Where is there an instance in this country of a road, once built, having been abandoned or obliterated? No; the bankrupted road is placed under the protection of a court and in the hands of a receiver. It conducts a fiercer warfare than ever against its solvent rivals; for the bankrupted road is relieved from the necessity of paying interest{444} on its mortgage or paying its debts, and continues to do business at lower rates than ever, for the receiver must keep it a-going pending its reorganization or whatever disposition is to be made of it.

The English people long ago reached a point which we are approaching fast, in that before a railroad is built its projectors must obtain a special charter, and in order to obtain that they must prove that there is a public need of the new line. Any one who has read the papers for the past few years will readily recall many instances of the destructive effects of building lines in territory already well supplied with transportation facilities. Take the West Shore road, which paralleled the New York Central, and not only sunk the capital of its own builders but forced a decline of fifty per cent. in the market price of New York Central, which from an eight per cent, dividend-paying corporation practically ceased to earn more than its fixed charges. The “Nickel Plate” road, paralleling the Lake Shore from Buffalo to Toledo, is another glaring instance in point. And still later we have the building of an unnecessary line from Kansas City to Chicago by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad, which has resulted in the fall of the stock of the latter company from about par to less than fifty cents on the dollar, with a coincident cessation of dividends.{445}

A host of mischiefs and evils have sprung from the almost unrestrained power of railroad officials in the matter of their charges. By charging some shippers more and others less by means of secret contracts, the officials opened to themselves a field of unlimited profit. An awkward fact, which there is no denying, is the large fortunes, in most cases running into the millions, possessed by men who are or who have been railroad officials on modest salaries, and who had nothing before entering upon these positions. The cost of transportation being such an important factor in the price of commodities, it was quite easy for the railway to enrich one man and beggar or drive out of business another in the same trade, and this was done according to the personal interests of the man or men who could thus make rates. More than this, it was not at all difficult for the railroad to impoverish one town or city and build up another by discriminating in rates.

In fact, the railroad had the power to say whether a merchant should or should not succeed in business, whether a town should or should not grow in population and prosperity. In the Hepburn committee’s investigation of the New York railroads in 1879 it was shown that the milling business in certain towns of northern New York had been killed by railroads granting rates which favored Minneapolis and other western points.{446} In one town all the millers but one were obliged to go out of business, and it was elicited in the investigation that this man had a secret contract with the railroad by which they carried his commodity for much lower rates than any of the others. The merchants of New York at that time complained that the discriminations of the railroads against the metropolis were driving away its trade to Baltimore and other points. The nefarious contracts made by the railroads with the Standard Oil Company were discovered so recently as to be still fresh in the public mind. It will be remembered that the railroads not only carried the Standard’s oil for a fraction of that charged a certain individual oil refiner, but actually paid over to the Standard Oil Company the overcharges of which they mulcted the unfortunate individual refiner.

The creation of railroad commissions in the various States, and the more recent establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission under the provisions of an act prohibiting these discriminations, forbidding the charging more for a longer than for a shorter haul, and inflicting a severe penalty for making railroad pools, goes far to remedy many of the most glaring evils complained of. But laws after all cannot make men moral, and, as President Charles Francis Adams, of the Union Pacific Railroad, said recently, “one of the chief causes of the railroad troubles is the{447} low standard of commercial honor among railway officials.” The opportunities for personal profit possessed by dishonest railroad officials, while somewhat diminished by the prohibition of discriminating rates by which they were enabled to build up one town in which they had an interest, or to favor certain firms in which they or their friends were partners, have been removed; but the avenues of unlawful gain still open to them are almost innumerable. As Herbert Spencer remarked in dealing with this same subject in England a quarter of a century ago, “corporations have no souls.” A combination of men will stoop to acts which the conscience of no one of them would sanction as an individual act. So, too, a man will deal with the rights and property of a corporation as he would never think of dealing with those of an individual.

Among the more frequent abuses of their official power, we find railroad officers personally buying lands in new territory or mining lands, and then building at the expense of the corporation branch lines to reach these properties and enhance their value; the establishment of manufacturing or business enterprises, in which the railway men are often secret partners, and securing for these enterprises favorable terms, and then contracting with the railroad to do business for less than cost; the fast freight lines, which ply over many roads, and which have exceptionally{448} easy contracts with the corporations and are in many instances the individual enterprises of railway officials. It was not long since shown that some of these lines were actually competing with the railroad proper for freight, and carrying it with express speed as low as the railroad could afford to carry it in ordinary freight cars.

Many of the swindles and abuses in railroad management owe their conception to the scandalous example of Fisk and Gould in the Erie Railroad. One or two of the little tricks played by Gould and his partner in that road, will give an idea of the possibilities of profit in dishonest railway management. When Gould became president and treasurer of the road twenty years ago, the Erie had a very favorable and longstanding lease of the Chemung and Canandaigua roads. The rental was exceedingly low, having been made at a time when the leased lines were in financial trouble. By the terms of the contract, if the Erie should at any time fail to pay the rental, the lease was to be thereby abrogated. Under the circumstances, the securities of these roads were naturally selling for a mere song. Gould, through his agents, quietly bought up these securities for about their weight in waste paper, thus becoming the sole owner of the roads. Then, in his capacity as president and treasurer of the Erie, he deliberately failed{449}

to pay the rental, thus cutting off the road from its lease and leaving him free to dispose of it as he pleased. He thereupon sold the roads to the Northern Central Railroad of Pennsylvania for three million dollars.

Again, the Northern Railroad of New Jersey had a stock capital of $159,000 and $300,000 of bonds. It had never been able to earn dividends on this small amount of stock. It was leased to the Erie on favorable terms. Here was another example of Gould’s genius. Four million dollars in bonds were issued on the property, and a million dollars of stock, which was divided among the conspirators; and then, to give these securities a market value, a new lease was made to the Erie by which the latter guaranteed thirty-five per cent. of the road’s net earnings—enough to pay interest on the enormous creation of new bonds and four or five per cent. on the stock.

One more instance: The National Stock Yard Company was organized by the conspirators. The Erie Company advanced a million dollars, taking bonds to that amount. A million dollars of stock was then issued, representing not one cent of money paid, and was divided among the gang.

It is well known that in nearly every large railroad company there is a construction ring which builds all extensions and feeders on the{450} most extravagantly profitable terms granted by the railroad company, the officials of the railroad being the chief parties in interest in the ring.

Aside from all these rascalities in the actual management of the properties, is the deplorable fact that the officials and directors speculate in the shares of their own concerns, thus betraying the interests of the bona fide stockholders, whose trustees they are. It is more than suspected that the chief bears who have been active in depressing the securities of some of the Western roads during the past winter were in partnership with the directors and other officers of these corporations. It is easy to see that those in a position to know the exact earnings of a company and to foresee the possibilities in the way of dividends have the advantage of everybody else in estimating the future market value of the securities.

While the holders of railroad bonds and shares, however, display so much apathy with reference to the management of their properties and the election of proper men to administer them, they deserve little sympathy. It is notorious that the annual elections of most of our railroads are the merest pro forma affairs. The men who are in power send out blanks every year asking for the proxies of shareholders, and the latter forward them, and thus enable these men to continue in power and practically own the corporations they{451} control. Where there is a contest for control, it usually lies, not between the shareholders, on some kind of principle in the administration of the property, but is found to be between two speculative Wall street factions, each of whom is anxious to secure the pickings. Until the shareholders of American roads take an active interest in their properties, as do English shareholders for instance, and insist upon the publication of the annual reports in advance of the meetings in order that they may attend the meetings and question their officials upon all dubious points, there can be little hope of permanent reform. In cases where there is a contest, it is not at all uncommon for an interested faction to pay stockholders a small sum for the proxies on their stock—a proceeding which has been aptly compared to a merchant selling to a burglar for a dollar in cash the use of the key of his safe every night. So much for the relations of holders of shares and bonds to the men who manage the corporations. As to the relations of the railroads to the public, it is clear that the recent widespread discussion and the salutary influence of the Interstate Commission must lead to beneficent results.

Aside from the great majority of the people, whose interests are indirectly but surely affected by any juggling with railroad properties and principles, is a great army of men who obtain{452} their livelihood and that of their families by work on or for railroads. An army? Yes; more men than ever were seen in the largest army in the world. All of them are “effectives,” too—none of them can be found among “the sick, lame and lazy.” Chauncey M. Depew, President of the New York Central road, says truly: “With those who are actually in the service, and those who contribute by supplies, one-tenth of the working force of the United States are in the railroad service; and that tenth includes the most energetic men and most intelligent among the workers of this magnificent country. There are ten million working men in this country, and six hundred thousand are directly employed in the railway service. With their families they constitute a larger population than the largest of the States.”

Mr. Depew further says, with equal truth: “There is no democracy like the railway system of this land. Men are not taken out of rich men’s parlors and placed in positions of responsibility. Men are not taken because they are sons of such, and put into paying places in the railway systems; but the superintendents all over the country, the men who officer and man the passenger, the freight, and motive power and accounting departments, all of them come up from the bottom. Are you going to stop this thing? No! There are no men being born or to be born{453} who are to be by inheritance the superintendents, treasurers, comptrollers, auditors, the freight and ticket agents, the conductors, the yard masters, who are to be the master mechanics, the foremen of the shops, of the future. They are not born. They have got to be made and come from the bottom up. And in every one of these departments to-day, in every railroad in the United States, in the humblest positions, earning the smallest salaries, are men, who within the next twenty-five years, are to fill all these places by promotion. Don’t tell me there is no chance to rise in this country.”

When this army grumbles, as once in a while it does, there is good cause for alarm; not that they, like the disaffected of other armies, may do damage to life and property, but because their troubles are almost always traceable to stock-juggling rascalities, from which the men have no hope of redress. Some of the companies allow no business operations to interfere with the rights of their employees. Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt is probably the most extensive owner of railway stock in the world, but he finds time to see his own employees frequently, and has even built and furnished a handsome club-room for them. He has also been active in assisting the Young Men’s Christian Association in establishing reading rooms at railway centres. President Charles Francis Adams, of the Union Pacific Company,{454} found time not long ago to publish, in a magazine article, the outline of a system for retaining and encouraging competent employees. President Roberts, of the great Pennsylvania road, is as proud of his men as any general ever was of his army.

These railroad magnates, and others who might be named, are setting a good example, which it is to be hoped some other officials will have sense enough to follow. It is bad enough for stockholders to be annoyed and impoverished by stock-juggling operations, but when the employees also suffer the whole country suffers with them. It is an unpardonable crime for any company, managing a road which deserves to exist, to take such good care of its managers that its employees must strike and even fight to be sure of living wages. Railway strikes hurt every traveller, every shipper, every receiver in the country. They never would begin if managers were honest. Stick a pin here and keep your eye on it.{455}

CHAPTER XIX.

BANKS AND BANKING.

WE are told by an old chronicler of the quaint and curious that in ancient times a number of Hebrews scattered in the cities along the shores of the Mediterranean conducted a most profitable banking business without the use of capital, by drawing one upon the other, in a perfect circle, the draft upon one being taken up by the next banker in the series, and so on ad infinitum.

Perhaps it will not do to scrutinize this story too closely, but there are many instances of almost as odd and ingenious devices in the history of banking. It was not until within a comparatively recent period that banks began to issue circulating notes. The early bankers were for the most part merely lenders of money, and this species of banker was called into existence very early in the world’s history. In fact, he was the natural result of the invention of money.

“A simple invention,” says Carlyle, “it was in the Old World grazier, sick of lugging his ox about the country until he could get it bartered for corn or oil, to take a piece of leather and{456} thereon scratch or stamp the mere figure of an ox (pecus), put it in his pocket and call it pecunia, money. Yet hereby did barter grow sale; the leather money is now golden and paper, and all miracles have been out-miracled; for there are Rothschilds and English national debts; and whoso has sixpence is sovereign to the length of sixpence over all men; commands cooks to feed him, philosophers to teach him, kings to mount guard over him—to the length of sixpence.”

It has been claimed on behalf of the bankers’ craft that they date back to Abraham, because it is recorded that he weighed out four hundred shekels of silver as the purchase-money for the cave and field of Macpelah wherein to bury Sarah. But this is rather far-fetched. Livy, however, writes of the tables of the money-changers in the Roman forum existing 300 years before Christ, and later Latin writers refer to deposits, checks and drafts, with all the familiarity of a financier of the present day, as if they were in general use. In these days, when the capitalists of the world are puzzled to invest their money safely to yield them three per cent., it is refreshing to remember that the old Greek bankers or money-lenders exacted as much as thirty-six per cent. a year from the spendthrift youths or embarrassed merchants of that day. Aristophanes, in one of his comedies, makes a money-lender bitterly bewail the fact that he has only been{457} able to get four per cent. on his loan. The Greek bankers used the temples as safe-deposit vaults for the storage of their treasures, and seem to have taken the priests into a sort of partnership. Something of the same sort probably prevailed among the Jews, and it is not difficult to believe that they were usurious, for the Saviour, when He overturned their tables in the temple, called them thieves—“My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.”

During succeeding ages, however, the methods of banking seem to have been lost until re-discovered and re-established by the Jews. A bank was established at Venice in the latter part of the twelfth century, another at Genoa in 1345, and they came into existence in several of the Dutch cities early in the seventeenth century. All of these were, in a sense, state banks, lending money to the state, and exercising their functions under its authority and protection. The Jews, and the Lombards, who had been taught in their schools, were almost the only money-lenders of Europe from the twelfth to the fifteenth century.

The first money-lender in England who at all approaches our modern idea of a banker was William de la Pole, a shipping-merchant of Hull, who loaned Edward the Third large sums to carry on his French wars, and in return the king{458} made over to him the collection of customs and internal revenues. He collected the royal rents and acted as paymaster of the army, and in a general way became the royal banker. Naturally a title was conferred upon him.

The prefix of “Sir” was subsequently given to Dick Whittington, of cat celebrity, for similar services to Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth. The goldsmiths in those times acted as money-lenders and pawnbrokers. After Charles the First grabbed about a million dollars, which they had deposited in the mint for safe-keeping, the nobles began to deposit their money with the goldsmiths, who allowed them interest thereon, and from having the custody of their rents and their income it was a natural step for them to request the goldsmiths to collect the money. The goldsmiths gave written evidences of indebtedness for the sums intrusted to them, and these were often transmitted by the holders in settlement of debt. When one of these goldsmiths speculated unfortunately or his business went wrong, his depositors naturally had to suffer.

Losses of this kind paved the way for the establishment of the Bank of England in 1694. It was planned by a Scotchman named William Patterson, who, however, derived many of his ideas from the Bank of Amsterdam, which was then in successful operation. In return for a loan of twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling{459} to the government the lenders, who organized the bank, were granted certain exclusive privileges, and their concern became the depository of the government money and has remained such ever since. It has now the accounts of many thousand private depositors, pays the interest on the government debt, issues circulating notes, and to a certain extent controls the rate of interest on money in England.

“In the forces of civilization we find the banker in the forefront. It was a banker that first taught the world the maxim of an honest commerce. It was the Bank of Venice that was the first to arbitrate commerce and control the seas; it was a banker that first taught a nation that the public fidelity was the right basis of all successful effort in the business world. For six hundred years Venice maintained unstained her honor, elevating the civilization of the world. In course of time she was succeeded by Amsterdam and Antwerp, their bankers honoring every check and paying every piece of paper, teaching the world that there was a giant in trade and commerce capable of strangling a nation. The bankers thus brought the world together, made the nations of the earth one man, one commonwealth.”

Savings banks originated in Switzerland, and{460} were instituted mainly for the benefit of the poor. They were organized by benevolent persons, who received no salaries for their services, and no capital was required. The purpose was rather to induce working-people to save from their earnings something for a rainy day or to provide for their old age, and consequently but little effort at first was made to secure large earnings on the deposits. The first we can learn of in Switzerland was established in 1805. A dozen years later they were organized in Scotland and England, and shortly after in France. In this country the first was organized in Boston in 1816, and within a few years they were to be found in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and their success in these centres soon led to their establishment in all the large towns throughout the country. They were chartered by the States, and were held by the State authorities to account for their honest and prudent management. Naturally the ideas of legislators in the various States differed somewhat as to the nature and functions of the banks, and hence there was a difference in their organization at the beginning, which subsequent legislation has made still more marked. There are now in existence three different classes of savings banks: the first is of the primitive type, instituted without capital; the second are joint-stock concerns, and the third are of the trust-company type, and{461} transact a banking business aside from the mere receipt and investment of deposits.

As population increased and the banks multiplied in number, and the desirability of establishing these banks became more general, they were no longer required to have a special charter in each instance, but were permitted to organize under general laws. The deposits in these now amount to a thousand million dollars, and the number of depositors in the Northern and Middle States is about three millions. Objection has been raised in some quarters to the joint-stock type of savings bank, on the ground that its deposits must be loaned profitably for the payment of dividends, and that consequently greater risks are incurred. This risk is still greater where savings banks are permitted to do a commercial business, as the paper which they discount may prove inconvertible in a time of commercial depression or in a panic. In some of the States the depositors are given the preference in such circumstances.

Mr. T. H. Hinchman, a prominent banker of Detroit, says: “The change from the purpose and policy of original savings institutions has been progressive, but of questionable character. It was not the acquirement of experience or the result of greater wisdom, but of enterprise by those in pursuit of greater profit. Different aims and objects should be under distinct, separate,{462} and appropriate laws. Benevolent institutions require different men and other management than those conducted on a commercial basis for profit.” He argues that there should be separate enactments for savings institutions and for trust companies, and indeed a wise distinction is made by the laws of most of the older States. These undoubtedly prove advantageous to all banks and bankers, as they simplify and increase their business. Officers of banks doing a mixed business are thereby relieved from error, responsibilities, risks, and cares, and savings depositors escape commercial hazard, and are free from risks caused by mismanagement of persons who advertise as savings banks.

Those who remember the frightful confusion that prevailed before the establishment of the National Banking system, when the notes of the old State banks constituted a considerable portion of the circulating medium, are among the most ardent admirers of the present system, at least so far as its method for the issue and guarantee of notes is concerned. In those days the laborer often went to his home on Saturday night carrying the wages of his week’s labor in the shape of notes issued by banks in half a dozen different States, and when his thrifty wife went out to expend them in purchase of the necessaries of life for her family she would be distressed to find that for some she could get but ninety cents on{463} the dollar, for others eighty cents, and that still others were of too questionable a character to be accepted by the shopkeepers at all. The farmer often received for the fruits of his toil notes of which he could know nothing, and which would be subsequently declared by experts to be worthless because the bank which had issued them was in liquidation, and it was not at all uncommon to find a forged note or two among them, for in the myriad issues of bills of every conceivable design and character of engraving the forger had an easy task.

The present National Banking system probably never could have been called into existence except for the difficulties in which the government was involved by the war with the South, for a scheme overthrowing, as it did, so many other systems organized by the authority of States would have met with an irresistible storm of opposition. As it was, the act authorizing it was fought not only by the opponents of the administration then in power, but by men like Roscoe Conkling, of New York, and Senator Collamer, of Vermont.

Mr. Logan C. Murray, President of the United States National Bank of New York city, thus speaks of the National Banking system:

“In 1863 the government of the United States, irrespective of State lines, took hold of the bank question and made it a national one, inaugurating{464} a state of perfection which I believe is unparalleled in the history of finance among the nations of the world.

“This child of the war between the States, born in the very travail of the soul of the nation, is to-day full-grown, of five and twenty years, comely, substantial, and has not been disappointing. Hard money was scarce in 1861. There had been built upon this limited supply, through the channels of credit, a massive structure; suddenly, as the storm arose, the sky became dark and the curtains of night were let down around State boundaries; with these parcels of credit, known as State currency, far from home, with no foster parent hand near by to protect it, intercourse cut off, we found ourselves depending upon a broken staff which was as chaff in the mighty storm, commercial ruin on every hand, and our shores strewn with the wrecks of a dismembered, useless and faithless medium.

“We found the Secretary of the Treasury knocking at the doors of our strongest moneyed institutions, asking from them aid in his great distress, appealing to the wisdom, courage, patriotism and resources of an almost forlorn hope. How nobly he was met is a matter of history.

“Not, however, until 1863, or two years afterwards, did the National Bank system have its birth—born of despair, of want, blood-bought, yea, in the very darkness of that midnight storm.{465}

Yet it is but the survival of the fittest. And now let us see after the uses which have been made of the system, and after the unparalleled prosperity which has come to us as a nation under its influence, if the parent of all this prosperity, to a greater or less degree, is to breathe its last—if its strong arm is to be stilled, and if we are to look for something better. Shall we wonder that men are bewildered when we look into the future and ask what is to supply the vacuum caused by the decay of the National Banking system? I for one answer:

“Do not fear, the National Banking system is not going to be destroyed. In the fulness of time it will be yet better established.

“Let us divide the system into two parts, as it were, and treat them as they may be. First, there is the Treasury of the United States, the Secretary charged with certain duties, the Comptroller of the Currency, the executive officer with each of the four thousand National Banks in every section of the land reporting to him, responsible to him, and he to the country at large—and by far his greatest responsibility is the care, faithful preservation and safe return to the depositors of the great mass of the deposits of the people made with these institutions. This is one part, and the great part of the system—the care of the deposits of the people and the careful and safe loaning of these deposits to the commercial{466} and manufacturing community by each institution, all under its general supervision.

“Now we come to the next part of the business of the system, and that is issuing note circulation. Does it occur to you how small a proportion of the circulation of the United States to-day the National Bank circulation is? Let us say it is about one-fifth part. Now let us assume that this shall gradually be cut off, as undesirable as that is; it is gradually declining, while other mediums of circulation are advancing in volume. We must remember that money, actual money, is about four per cent. only of all commercial transaction; credit, and credit alone, supplies the other ninety-six per cent.

“I do not think any National Bank or any other bank should emit any note or bill, for circulation without it is secured. Is it not true that there are very many National Banks in the United States to-day which do not issue circulation, even though banks of a capital of $150,000 and above are required to lodge but $50,000 of bonds with the Treasury, and some of these do not take out circulation on those bonds—whereas a small bank in Dakota is required to lodge one-fourth part of its capital, say if it is $50,000, it is required to lodge $12,500 of bonds with the Treasury, whether it takes out circulation or not? Why is it so? If they issue no circulation, then no bonds should be required. If large banks to-day{467} are not issuing circulation on the small amount of bonds required, say $50,000, even though its capital be $5,000,000 (as is the case), then why require one-fourth part of the capital of a small bank to be invested in high-priced bonds before beginning business?

“Therefore, repeal that part of the National Bank act which requires a deposit of United States bonds from a bank which is to receive no circulation. If a bank choose to lodge bonds, then give it the privilege of issuing circulation on them, as of old.”

The reduction, and now the current purchase, of government bonds, which serve as a basis of circulation for National Bank notes, have driven the bonds to such a high premium that the banks some years ago began to surrender their circulation at such a rate as to seriously contract the currency and excite apprehension as to the result. But for the issue of silver certificates, which have largely taken their place, a crisis would, in the opinion of many financiers, have been reached long ago. The profit on circulation was so seriously reduced by the high price of the bonds, on which it is based, that a number of banks in New York city and elsewhere surrendered their charters as National Banks and organized under the law as State institutions. They were largely impelled to do this by a desire to escape the restrictions imposed by the National Banking laws and{468} the scrutiny of the Comptroller of the Currency and the officials of his department. The passage of the law forbidding over-certification compelled a number of them to take this course. In August, 1883, the Wall Street National Bank was forced to suspend. An examination by the government officials showed that it had certified checks of a firm $200,000 in excess of their balance in cash and that this was the principal cause of the bank’s failure. The cashier was indicted, but the bank was wound up, went out of existence, and the intention of making a terrible example of the delinquent official, who, however, acted with the approval of the president and directors, appears to have been abandoned.

Touching the opposition shown in Congress and elsewhere to National Banking systems, ex-United States Comptroller of the Currency John Jay Knox says:

“The system has been of immense benefit to the government in its disbursements and in funding temporary loans and also in the refunding of its debt which, but twenty-eight years ago, amounted to $2,845,000,000. The National Banking system rendered more valuable service to the government than any other human agency in the resumption of specie payments. The National Banks held on the day of resumption (January 1, 1879) 125,000,000 of United States demand circulating notes. Sixty-two National{469} and State banks in the Clearing House of New York unanimously voted to receive the legal tender notes upon an equality with gold, and on the day of resumption the banks of that city, which held $40,000,000 of legal tender notes, did not present a dollar then, or subsequently to this day, for payment in coin. As at the commencement of the war the banks parted with their gold for the benefit of the government, so at its close and upon the resumption of specie payments they relinquished the right of again demanding it, and were well satisfied to receive instead the demand notes of the government, which are redeemable in coin upon presentation. Yet, notwithstanding these important services, the legislative department of the government has never been strong in its friendship for this system. The statutes of the government contain very much restrictive and very little friendly legislation toward the institutions which were created by its fiat. A few years ago, when the charters of most of the banks were expiring, it was only after a long contest that an act was passed authorizing a renewal of their privileges. If at any time favorable legislation has been granted by Congress, it has been given ‘grudgingly’ and not as a ‘cheerful giver.’

“We have heard much of the surplus and the necessity of the reduction of the revenue. Both parties profess to be in favor of such reduction.{470} Both parties have proposed to reduce the tax on the ‘filthy weed,’ and both parties proposed legislation granting relief to the whiskey manufacturer and the whiskey drinker; but not one officer of the government, nor one man of either House, has had sufficient courage to propose the lessening or the repeal of the tax on the circulation of the banks, which now amounts to less than $1,700,000 and which is the last of the remaining ‘war taxes,’ except the tax upon the two deleterious articles referred to, which are considered by the leading civilized nations as the most fit subjects for ‘high taxation.’

“Yet no class of corporations since the organization of the government have contributed so largely toward the support of the State and the nation, and no class of corporations have ever been so unmercifully taxed as the banking institutions of this country. Not only have Congress and the different State Legislatures imposed high rates of taxation, but the courts of the country, including the Supreme Court of the United States, composed as it is of able jurists who should be devoid of all prejudice, have construed the questions which have been brought before them with rigor worthy of the bitterest enemy of the system. While other corporations engaged in precisely the same line of business are authorized to do business almost without legislative restrictions and without taxation, the{471} very highest rates that can be imposed are placed upon these institutions, whose only source of profit is the loaning of money at the rates of interest fixed by the same high authority which imposes the taxation. Yet, notwithstanding the opposition of Congress and the unfriendly decisions of the courts and the bitter enmity of individuals, the system has steadily and rapidly grown in favor, until the institutions organized under it from the beginning number nearly four thousand, some of which are located in every State and Territory as well as in every considerable village in the land.”

As the steady reduction of the national debt proceeds, students of financial questions are casting about for some substitute for the present outstanding circulation, which has now dwindled to about $150,000,000. Mr. Edward Atkinson, of Boston, the well-known statistician and economist, presents this novel suggestion:

“Will any Congress dare to reduce the revenue to such an extent as to leave any considerable amount of debt unpaid at the end of the present century, whether it be bonded debt or demand debt represented by legal tender notes? I submit these as the possible conditions which may make it an absolute necessity for the people of this country to invent a new instrument of exchange, to take the place of the legal tender notes and of the bank notes secured by United States{472} bonds, unless the whole circulating medium is to consist either of bullion, or of certificates of the government backed by bullion, dollar for dollar. The tendency of events is to cause the withdrawal from circulation of uncovered paper, to wit: National Bank notes and legal tender notes, leaving only in circulation certificates of deposits of gold or silver, backed dollar for dollar by actual coin, and also gold and silver coin in specie.

“No position could be stronger than this; but the difficulty will arise in the fact that even were the annual revenues and expenditures of the government equalized, the working of the Sub-Treasury Act in dealing with such large sums as now constitute the financial transactions of the government might seriously interfere with the money market at times. Under present conditions it is becoming apparent that it is impossible for the government to adjust its transactions to the ordinary conditions of the money market; it is also impossible for the government to perform the functions of a bank of issue; the tension is now very great, and the conditions cannot possibly be continued for any length of time. The issue of certificates of deposit of gold or silver would not meet the varying conditions of supply and demand for instruments of exchange or circulating notes, and there will soon be no government bonds available as securities for{473} bank notes. There is a volume of other securities in existence—Railroad, State and City bonds—which would form an absolute security for a circulating medium covered in part only by a reserve of actual coin. Can the arrangements be made and the authority established for a selection among these securities of those which ought to be made available to secure the notes which might serve as instruments of exchange? Can a central bureau, bank or other form of administration be established by a permissive act, with branches in different parts of the country, to supply an elastic, safe and suitable paper currency convertible into coin on demand, on a separate foundation and under a separate administration from that under which banks of deposit and discount may continue to be organized?”

The New York banks are naturally the richest and most powerful in the country, and New York, no doubt, always will be the monetary centre of this country. But her absolute dominancy of the rest of the country, which she held for so many years, is passing away. The severest blow to New York’s banking supremacy perhaps was the passage of the law permitting the importation of foreign goods in bond direct to interior points. Formerly the grain from western fields was consigned to New York, and the contract for its shipment abroad made there. The New York banks were drawn upon for funds, and earned a{474} commission upon every bushel of wheat that went out through the Narrows. In like manner, all goods brought from abroad found a resting-place there, and the duties were paid in New York, and it was New York capital which forwarded them to their destination.

But all that has been changed. The merchant in Chicago or St. Louis now buys his goods in Manchester or Paris and consigns them direct to his own city. The West reaches out over New York’s head and helps herself to whatever she wants in the Old World. So, too, with what she has to sell in Europe. A single rate is made from the western prairie to the dock at Liverpool. Wheat is rushed through without the intervention of any New York factor. As new towns and cities have sprung up in the interior, and new manufacturing centres have been established, and the mineral wealth of the country has been developed, the West has grown rich, and many of the banks in the interior now carry lines of deposit which would have seemed very large to the most important institutions in the East a few years ago. The increase in the number of “reserve cities” made by act of Congress two years ago was regarded at the time as destined to increase the amount of funds in the western banks at the expense of those on the coast. Up to that time there were but sixteen “reserve cities” in the United States. Each of these was{475} required to keep on hand at all times, in loanable money, twenty-five per cent. of its deposits, while every bank outside of these cities was required to keep but fifteen per cent. of its deposits on hand. Any of these fifteen per cent. banks were permitted to keep three-fifths of this fifteen per cent. in the banks of any of the sixteen cities referred to, and any bank located in the reserve cities might keep, if it wished to do so, one-half of its loanable money reserved in the city of New York. The theory was that New York was the monetary centre of the country, and the other fifteen cities were the respective centres of the sections in which they were located. The law, moreover, made provision for counting, as a part of the required reserve, a portion of the balance which it was supposed the conditions of trade would require them to keep at the local centres, and at the general centre.

The new law of 1887 added a number of other cities to the list, with regard to reserves which New York had held up to that time. The amendment, however, left money free to seek its natural channels and reservoirs, assuming that the drift of the current had changed since the passage of the original act. But experience since has shown that trade requirements bring a large proportion of the reserves to New York, and so the new legislation has wrought comparatively little change. The tendency to withdraw{476} funds from New York under the amended law has been checked by the fact that as soon as any city takes on its new dignity of a central reserve point, it can no longer keep a portion of its reserve in New York, but must keep its full twenty-five per cent. reserve in its own vaults idle. Chicago and St. Louis have become full central reserve cities like New York, and, as higher interest rates rule in these cities than in New York, it is natural that many accounts should be transferred from the latter city; and this has happened, as is demonstrated by Chicago bank returns. The drift of currency from New York last fall for the purpose of moving the crops, demonstrates that, while the western banks hold more money for current wants, New York must still be drawn upon for the large sums needed to move grain and cotton harvests.

The frequency of paragraphs in the daily papers announcing the departure of another cashier for Canada demonstrates that there is something loose in the methods of banking institutions. The president of the bank does not give sufficient attention to the actual transaction of business. He is usually too familiar and easy-going with his cashier and other important officials. It is seldom that he emerges from his parlor to go behind the counter and see what is actually going on. As for the so-called examinations made from time to time by directors, they{477} are in ninety-nine cases out of every hundred simply farcical. The president of the bank tells the cashier some fine morning: “Get things straightened up now, Jimmy, the directors are coming to-morrow, and we want everything in good shape.” The advent of the directors being thus heralded, everything presents a fair appearance on the occasion of their visit. They chat and chaff each other, glance casually over the statements presented by the president, and then adjourn to indulge in a luxurious luncheon on the floor above. So ends their examination.

It is because cashiers are relieved from all practical surveillance that so many of them are led to ultimately test the climate of Canada. A broker, speaking to the cashier some fine morning, says: “By the way, Jones, Erie is going to have a big rise; you’d better buy yourself a couple of hundred.” “Oh, I never speculate,” says Jones; “haven’t got the money to do it with.” “That’s all right,” says the broker, “I’ll buy a couple of hundred for you, and if there’s any loss you can make it good; but I’m sure you’ll make money on it.” Possibly the cashier accedes to this proposition, but more frequently, if he be a cautious and circumspect man, he uses the broker’s point in a different way. He has possibly seen the broker grow rich within a few years and envies him. Here is a tempting opportunity to make a handsome turn, for his salary{478} is comparatively small, and he could put a few thousand dollars to exceedingly good use. It may be, then, that he borrows from a friend, or draws upon his own savings for money which he secretly deposits as margin with some stock firm and buys two hundred Erie. It goes down. His margin is exhausted. The brokers tell him it will probably decline very little more. But they want more margin. Right under his hands are big fat packages of bills of large denominations. What shall he do? If his brokers sell him out, the savings of years are gone in the twinkling of an eye. If he is a weak man, he argues, “Why not take a thousand dollar bill out of this package marked $50,000? It would never be missed.” Erie is sure to go up to-morrow, when he can withdraw the amount from his brokers and put it back in the bundle. He will be saved from every loss and nobody the worse for it. Unfortunately, things do not turn out that way. Erie goes lower. The thousand dollars is gone. What shall he do? His theft, for such it now plainly has become, will probably not be discovered for some time. What shall he do? Speculate in some other stock and try to make up the loss. And he does it. It is useless to pursue the theme any further. Grown more desperate from day to day, he plunges; his losses become too large to be longer concealed, and one day, fearing exposure, he takes to flight, possibly{479} carrying off additional funds of the bank. It may be that the first money he took was not to speculate with but to pay some household bill. But it leads to the same result in the end.

Now, if the president were in the habit of casually dropping around to the cashier’s desk and looking over his cash, the initial step in this march to ruin would be prevented. Suppose the president picks up hap-hazard any one of the many packages of bills and counts them over to see that they tally with the total marked on the wrapper. The knowledge that he is liable to do that at any time will deter the cashier from abstracting that first bill, and he is saved from the subsequent crime and disgrace.

Unfortunately, dishonesty in banks is not confined to cashiers. Many a bank director amasses large sums by means which are quite as disgraceful as embezzlements, although they are not so harshly punished. Mr. Moneybags, for instance, is a director in several large banking institutions. He is also in all probability a very heavy speculator in the stocks of railroads in which he has inside information. As director of bank No. 1 he sees that a certain man has pledged a block of the stock of a certain corporation as collateral security for a heavy loan. As director in bank No. 2 he perhaps learns that the same man is borrowing largely from that institution and on another block of the same stock. It{480} is clear that the speculator in question is very heavily loaded—probably carrying more of that stock than is prudent. Anything which would seriously depreciate the market value of that stock would probably force him to throw overboard a considerable portion of his holdings. The director of easy conscience quietly puts out a line of shorts in the stock in question at the ruling high prices. At the next directors’ meeting of bank No. 1 he tells his fellow-directors that he hears rumors affecting Mr. Speculator’s credit, that he is overloaded with the stock of the road in question, and suggests to the president that it would be prudent to invite Mr. Speculator to return the money he had borrowed and take away his stocks. Possibly he causes similar action to be taken by the other bank of which he is a director. Mr. Speculator, so unexpectedly called upon to return very large sums of money, is embarrassed. He is obliged to go into the market and sell a large amount of the stock in question. The price falls sharply in consequence and the director covers his shorts at a handsome profit. It is doubtless true that a majority of bank directors are above this sort of thing; but there are bank directors, and not a few of them either, who contrive to turn their official positions to their personal profit.{481}

CHAPTER XX.

OUR CITIES.

It necessarily follows that New York, being the greatest city in the Union, is the vilest sore on our body politic.

If any one doubts it, let him live in New York awhile and keep his eyes and ears open.

The trouble about great cities is not that they have any impetus or influence especially their own, but that every one, from the vilest all the way up to the best, is compelled by circumstances of city life to often conduct his own daily walk and conversation on lines which are not entirely natural, and which never can be made so.

It would be useless to deny that in every large city may be found a number of the best men and women that humanity has been able to evolve. In the great cities are found many of our wisest statesmen, our greatest theologians, our best business men, and a host of lesser, but perhaps not less important individuals, whose influence{482} for good upon the world is known and recognized everywhere. Nevertheless, these are exceptions to the rule. They are not what they are because of the city; they are in the city simply because it gives them a better centre and starting-place for whatever work may be incumbent upon them.

The first deadening influence of the city is that no one knows any one else. Of course every one has some acquaintances, and some people are said to be in the best society and to know everybody, but “everybody” is a relative term, and it never means as much in the largest city as it does in a village of a thousand people. The postman knows everybody by name, and so does the tax-collector and the man who brings you your gas bill, but individual acquaintance—the touch of elbow—the touch of nature that makes the world akin, must not be looked for in any large city in the Union, least of all in New York, which in spite of two hundred and fifty years of existence, is still so new comparatively that almost all of its prominent citizens were born somewhere else. The names of prominent Americans who reside in New York will naturally occur to any one, yet it is quite safe to say that not one of these gentlemen know by sight and name, let alone by personal acquaintance, more than one person in five who reside within a two-minute walk of his house.

An ex-cabinet officer, a gentleman whose varied{483} abilities have made him known throughout the civilized world, was once asked who was his neighbor on the right. The houses of the two men touched each other, as two houses must, in the city of New York, but the wise and largely acquainted gentleman was obliged to say that he did not know. When the questioner informed him that the person occupying the adjoining house was a notorious thief for whom the police had been long in search, he was astonished and shocked. Nevertheless, when he a few months afterward had his house robbed and drove about violently in a cab in search of the police captain of his precinct, it took him an hour to discover that the said police official resided next door to him on the left. Afterward he was teased about his lack of knowledge of his neighbors, and he admitted frankly that, although he was a man without “airs,” and had always made it a custom to fraternize freely with his fellow-men, he knew but two individuals who resided on the same block with himself, and one of these was his own grocer, who occupied a store on the corner.

“If this is so with the green tree, what must it be with the dry?” Men whose sole business is to earn their daily living are glad to find a decent roof over their heads anywhere in a large city and drop into the best place they can find, regardless of who may be their neighbors, and utterly unable to devote any time to their neighbors,{484} even should they be fortunate enough to become acquainted with them. Neighborhood feeling and sentiment, which is of incalculable benefit in all communities not thickly settled, has no influence whatever in a large city. A man may not only live in a house between two people of whom he knows nothing, but the great value of ground in the city of New York and the limited area has compelled the erection of a number of buildings known as “flat” and “apartment” and “tenement” houses, and very few men know the people who live under the same roof with themselves.

An amusing story is told of a couple of editors, who were questioned about each other and each replied that he had not the honor of the other’s acquaintance. The answer seemed to puzzle those who heard it, and the subsequent remarks elicited a demand for an explanation, when it was learned that these two men, members of the same profession, and both entirely reputable citizens, had been residing in the same building for six months; but as one was at home only by daylight, and the other only at night, they had never chanced to meet under their own roof.

Of course, if such ignorance may come in the ordinary course of events regarding entirely respectable people, cities must form an admirable hiding-place for disreputable and dangerous characters of all sorts. The time was when a{485} man detected in crime thought it advisable to run away from a large city. But nowadays he knows better. He stays as near home as possible, knowing that there are numberless opportunities for keeping himself entirely out of sight and out of mind of every one who ever knew him. Defaulters who have a great deal of money in their pockets, and also those who have none at all, occasionally find it desirable to go to Canada or Europe, but the rogue who has two or three thousand dollars to spare knows perfectly well that by keeping in-doors in New York he can absolutely escape detection. The police may know him by sight, but the keepers of boarding-houses do not, neither do their servants; and so long as he will remain in his room, have his meals sent to him, and take his exercise and outings only after dark in such disguise as any one can improvise at very short notice, he is entirely safe from detection. One of the bank defaulters who ranks as one of the most successful in the annals of such crime in the city of New York, was looked for in Canada and all over Europe for eight months, and finally by accident was discovered in a boarding-house only two squares away from his original place of residence.

Criminals when not actually plying their vocation generally go to large cities, for two reasons; first, to spend their ill-gotten gains in pleasure,{486} and secondly, that as a rule cities are the best hiding-places.

For the same reason that causes desperate criminals to hide in the larger cities, all persons who have in their lives any features which they wish to conceal, find the cities preferable places of residence. One man of large property and some national prominence died a few years ago in the city in which he had been doing business for thirty years, and after he died it was discovered that he had nine wives living, from no one of whom had he ever separated through the formality of a divorce. Each of these nine women imagined herself his one and only wife. Any man, who has formed an undesirable alliance in business or in love or otherwise, knows that with very little trouble he can hide all traces of his mischief by going to a large city to live.

An inevitable consequence is that the number of able but undesirable characters who exist in the cities, having left other places for the good of those who are left behind, have a depressing influence upon the moral atmosphere of other classes of residents. Men meet men whom they never saw before, and whom they are obliged to judge entirely by appearance and professions. It is the same in business as it is in society. Not a year passes in which some adventurer does not impose himself for a time upon the best society of New York and of other cities. And{487} although it would seem that his antecedents might easily be discovered upon the basis of such information as he may feel obliged to give about himself, the fact remains that society is “taken in” quite as often as banks and business men and private individuals. Several years ago a notorious scamp, who had been in several State-prisons, came to New York, organized a business firm, took a large store, was discovered in the course of time to be carrying on operations closely akin to stealing, and when his record was thoroughly searched and sifted by the police, it was discovered that his victims were principally the largest wholesale establishments in the city of New York—establishments which employed a number of men for the sole purpose of investigating the character and resources of any one applying to them for credit or for any business relations beyond ordinary purchases for cash.

These smart scamps, who are a hundred times as numerous as the newspaper disclosures would lead the public to imagine, have a terribly demoralizing influence upon the young men who flock to the city from all parts of the rural districts as well as upon those who are brought up in the city. To see a rascal succeed has a bad effect upon any one. Even the most righteous man will mournfully quote from Scripture that “the wicked shall flourish as the green bay tree;” that “their eyes stand out with fatness;{488} they have more than heart can wish,” where the respectable man has to lie awake nights to devise ways and means of paying his coal-bill and avoiding trouble with his landlord. Business enterprises containing any amount of promise are organized, forced upon the public by smart schemers of whom no one knows anything, and all of them succeed in obtaining a great deal of money. When discovery comes, as of course it must come sooner or later, the villain never makes restitution to any extent and is never adequately punished for his crime. So, the citizen who pretends to be respectable, but always has an eye out for the main chance, is moved by such examples to see whether he cannot do something sharp himself, and get away before the crash comes.

Society in large cities is said to be exclusive. It must be, for its own protection. It cannot possibly be too exclusive. People with and without letters of introduction succeed in forming acquaintances, becoming part of one or another social set, even get into the churches, open bank accounts, go into business, and a year or two afterward are discovered to have antecedents which would make a person of ordinary respectability hold up his hands in horror. Such occurrences have been so common, and the individuals concerned have so often been not only men but women, that the exclusiveness of city society{489} extends even to the churches and school-rooms. The half-grown child attending a public or private school is warned against making any acquaintances whatever except with the children of families whom its parents already know. The member of a church may have a stranger shown into his pew again and again on Sundays, and extend to him the courtesy of an open prayer-book or hymnal, but in self-defence he is compelled to stop at that. The cordiality, freedom of speech, and general recognition, which is the custom in small towns and in rural districts throughout the world, is denied the prudent inhabitant of a city, no matter how hearty his inclination may be to extend a welcoming hand to every one whom he may meet. Young men entering society, young women seen for the first time in some social circle, are at first regarded very much as a stranger entering a mining town in the West, where it is supposed no one goes unless he has good reason to get away from his original home.

Nowhere in the world are there more charitable hearts with plenty of money behind them than in large cities, yet nowhere else is there more suffering. Your next-door neighbor may be starving to death and you not know anything about it. You know nothing of his comings and nothing of his goings; he knows nothing of you, and if he has any spirit whatever, and any{490} respect for himself, he would rather apply to the police or to the authorities in charge of the poor than to the people living nearest to him. Whenever the newspapers of a city make some startling disclosure of destitution and suffering a number of purses open instantly, and frequently some of the sufferers have received gifts from their own landlords, who actually did not know of the name and existence of the tenant. A judge of the Supreme Court of the city of New York has long been known as a frequent and prompt visitor in person to all individuals reported as in destitute condition and deserving of immediate assistance, yet he said once to his own pastor, and to his own physician also, who chanced to be present, that the great sorrow of his life was, that he was utterly incapacitated by the conditions of city life from discovering for himself the whereabouts of individuals whom he would gladly assist with his pocket and his counsel.

As nobody knows anybody in the large cities, what is called the floating population have everything their own way, each one for himself. Business wrongs that would not be tolerated for an instant in a smaller community are perpetrated with entire impunity in the large cities. The poorer classes have no strong friend or acquaintance to complain to. Were they in a smaller place they would know some one; probably they would know everybody of any consequence, and{491} also be known, and could quickly bring public sentiment to their aid, but in a large city there is no such opportunity. The only hope of the oppressed is in the courts, which always are overcrowded with business, and can give very little time to any one, and in the press, which is also overcrowded with work, and should not be charged with this sort of responsibility.

Temptation will exist wherever humanity is found, but for a concentration of all temptations, graded to suit all capacities of human weakness, the great city stands pre-eminent. There is no vice that cannot be committed in it—committed with reasonable assurance that it will not be discovered. A man whose habits are apparently correct, who has no known vices, whose daily manner with his fellow-men seems all that it should be, may with entire safety change his manner at night, and re-enact the drama of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It is worse than that. He not only may, but in a great many instances he does. Any man whose business compels him to know a number of persons by sight, and whose hours of duty keep him out-of-doors in the “wee sma’ hours,” occasionally sees things which stagger him. He sees citizens of good repute in company which any village loafer would be ashamed to be seen in by his own acquaintances. He sees policemen taking charge of men who by daylight the police of their own locality regard{492} with extreme respect. He sees the high and the low mingle on the same level, and from their manners he would not be able to know one from the other. Newspapers are sometimes blamed for publishing sensational stories, which reminds me of a remark once made by the famous Parson Brownlow, of East Tennessee. He was called to account one day for using profane language, he being a minister of the gospel. “If you knew,” said he, “how many cuss words I hold in, you would not blame me for the few I let out.” If the newspapers were to print all the sensational stories which come to them they would have to double the size of their sheets, and still they would have no room for any decent news whatever.

I repeat it, great cities are great sores, and it is to the interest of every one that they should in some way be extracted from the body politic and be allowed and compelled to maintain a separate existence. I know that the parallel is not exact, but such things have been done in some cases. The city is a millstone about the neck of the State in almost all cases. Whatever may be the political preference of the reader, he must admit the fact that the single city of New York politically dominates the State, although containing only about one-fourth of the population, and that the expressed will and intention of a large majority of the voters of the State outside the metropolis{493} is steadily neutralized by a great majority composed principally of ignorant persons who infest a great city. The evil has impressed itself strongly upon the minds of publicists and journalists of all degrees to such an extent that the suggestion has often been made that the city should be allowed a separate organization by and in itself, somewhat analogous to the position once held by the free cities of Germany. In such case, whatever may be the ultimate political results, the fact would remain that each portion of the divided community would have its own will distinctly expressed, whereas at present one neutralizes the other. New York has been making the attempt for years by a series of special governments by commission, the origin being in special enactments by the legislature at Albany. The results have not been successful, but the trouble was not lack of principle in the enactments, but in the individuals selected to carry on the experiment. The suggestion however continues to be made. Similar plans have been mentioned regarding some other large cities of the United States. And it is not impossible that all of them may be granted “home rule” in the strictest sense, and that the States at large will thus escape the city rule to which at present they are being subjected.{494}

THE DARKER SIDE.

What already has been said about the evils of city life and influence may seem bad enough, but there is another side that is worse. Crime and license affect the human mind strongly when brought before it as the cause of a large amount of irregularity, but the public heart is more quickly and firmly impressed by the knowledge of suffering.

The amount of suffering that exists in all large cities merely through enforced conditions of life passes power of expression. No one has ever yet been able to do the subject justice. Many who have worked among the poor have lost life and hope, and mind itself, in contemplation of the suffering and sorrow which they have witnessed and been unable to relieve. To attempt to care for the poor of a large city affects one very much like an effort to pour water into a sieve; the demand is continual, yet nothing seems to be effected.

Almost everywhere outside of the cities it is assumed at the beginning that those who suffer through their poverty in large cities are either indolent or vicious. A more cruel mistake could not possibly be made. There are many idlers in any large city, as a matter of course, but the great majority of the people work hard to keep soul and body together. The largest gathering{495} of idlers that any occurrence can bring together does not equal in numbers the procession which one may see in five minutes’ time on any thoroughfare during regular hours of going to work or returning home.

A full half of the population of the largest city in the Union reside in tenement houses. The tenement house at best is unfit for human residence if the people who inhabit it expect to enjoy good health, and if the children who are part of almost every family are expected to grow and develop properly in body and soul. Yet the bald fact is that more than half a million of the inhabitants of this country live on several square miles of land in one single city. Land is costly, builders’ work is expensive; the cheapest-built houses cost a great deal of money, and consequently the space in them must be divided and subdivided with great skill and detail if the poorer classes are to find habitation at all.

Almost all of this half million people are honest, hard workers. The heads of families are among the first to go to work in the morning and among the last to go to their homes at night. They are those who work for the smallest wages and do the hardest work. They and their families need just as much food to support life as any of the well-to-do portion of the population. But in any large city the necessities of life are costly, and they are particularly so in our largest city.{496} The wages of an ordinary mechanic or workingman will barely pay the rent of the cheapest apartment and buy food for five people. Clothing must be left to chance, luxury must be unthought-of, and the only possible relaxation is that to be found in the streets or at places where entertainment is free.

More heroism is displayed in some of these humble homes than ever was witnessed on any battle-field of which the world has knowledge. The wolf at the door is a thousand times worse foe than the enemy on the frontier. The soldier always has glory to look to in case he dies. The suffering laborer dies, if die he must, in abject misery at the thought of his family’s future. Whatever his health, however numerous his discomforts, however small his pay, he must work and go on working, or his family must starve. He has no friends who are rich or influential; if he had, he would not be a poor working-man; his only friends are those of his own kind, and while almost any of them would in time of necessity share their last loaf with him, there are times when the most friendly of them have no loaf to share. A day or two of sickness of the head of the family imposes a stern chase which lasts long and costs frightfully. The death of a member of their family means absolute ruin. This would seem bad enough, but there is worse behind it. The necessity of sending the remains of the{497}

loved one to the burial ground of the paupers is one of the terrible experiences which are very common in large cities. Some of them cannot afford even the small time necessary to do that much; so, with many tears and prayers, perhaps sometimes with many curses upon the hard luck to which fate or fortune has reduced them, the remains are quietly carried to the river-side at night and there dropped from sight, though not from memory. A few years ago a newspaper attaché, attending one of the large excursions given by charitable persons to children of the poor, overheard a mother and daughter talking about a sick babe which the daughter was to carry on board the boat. The mother could not go. She had to work or the family must starve. She took her child in her arms, again and again kissed it, cried over it, and then began a skilful conversation with her daughter leading up to the possibility and advisability, in case of death during the trip, of dropping the little darling’s remains overboard, saying that the deep, clean sea was a cleaner burial place than the dark ground in the cemetery. The child listened with wondering face and finally agreed with her mother. As for the reporter, he was so horrified that he was utterly unfit for work for a year after, although he imagined himself hardened to scenes of suffering.

The wildest imagination cannot possibly exceed{498} some actual facts of tenement-house life. The story has been told again and again, until there is no novelty in it, of families crowded together so closely that all the decencies of life were forgotten, because it was impossible to observe them, of bad associations formed, of children wilting and weakening unto death because the air they breathed was unfit to support life, of food purchased at cheaper and cheaper prices until that finally used was little better than poison to those who ate it, of poverty induced by payments deferred, of the wretchedness and semi-starvation that exist through some of the long strikes of some of the laboring classes; but none of it fully equals the truth. There are happy, virtuous, well-fed, well-clothed families in tenement houses, and it is probably fair to say that these are perhaps in the majority, but the minority is so numerous that the heart is appalled at contemplating it. Out of their wretched homes these people cannot go. There is no other place for them. While a man and his wife are young and before they have children, they may roam about if they choose as tramps in pleasant summer weather, until some happy chance finds work for one or the other in the rural districts. But once anchored in the city by a family of children, and the opportunities of the laboring man of small income to ever change his condition are almost nothing. Some men say that the influence of{499} religion is declining. The strongest refutation, and an absolute one, of this statement is that the miserable people in large cities do not arise in frenzied mobs and destroy everything which they cannot steal. The long, patient and then despairing struggle against the inevitable is enough to reduce any man to frenzy, were it not, as Longfellow says, that poverty

It nevertheless is true that as large a proportion of these people as of any other class in the city are religious by instinct, training and practice. The churches which they attend are more crowded on Sundays than those of the better classes, and the painter who wishes to find models of patience and resignation and determination can find them better at the doors of these churches than anywhere else in the world.

Still the misery goes on. It increases. The tenement-house population grows larger and larger every year. The accommodations become smaller because the tendency of the rents of such property is steadily upward. There is no way of escape. Little by little the parents of the family of young children prevail upon themselves to allow children to help support the family. There is no cruelty about it in the intention of the parents. The children have little enough to{500} interest them. Their parents are too busy to talk with them or answer any of their questions. During the day the children are in the way, and to the father and mother comes the suggestion that if the entire family were at work together there might be a closer family life. The children are quite willing to take part in whatever their parents are doing. Indeed, it is hard to keep them from doing so. So the transition for children from utter indolence to child labor is very short and easy.

There are a great many businesses in a large city in which children may help their parents. Among these, the most prominent probably will be found among the clothing manufacturers and the makers of that much-abused article, the tenement-house cigar. It isn’t necessary for the reader to be frightened at the idea that cigars are made in tenement-houses, because a respectable man or woman with their children are less likely to have any habits or surroundings which will make the tobacco leaf deleterious than the workman in any famous factory in Havana. There are diseases among the operatives in Cuban cigar factories of which the less said the better. Whatever other ailments there may be in tenement-house life, these particular diseases are not to be found there. Nevertheless the idea of a man and woman and several children working ten or twelve or fourteen hours a day in a room{501} ten feet square with a lot of decaying vegetable matter—which is exactly what leaf tobacco in the course of manufacture really is—to pollute the atmosphere about them, is not a pleasant thing. Tobacco has powerful medicinal qualities, most of which are of a poisonous nature. A small amount of nicotine, the essential principle of tobacco, has been powerfully effective either as a narcotic, or stimulant, or a germicide. The effect upon persons who handle it incessantly during a full half of every day can consequently be imagined. Every one in the room becomes irritable unless the food supply is abundant and carefully selected; every one finally becomes extremely nervous. Men and women do not well endure the life of tobacco manufacturers. To children the constant handling of the leaf is frequently poisonous. Nevertheless, a certain amount of money ought to be earned every day by the family; the father and mother are not able to do it; the children help; the family earnings are as much for the child’s sake as for the parents, and so the work goes on.

In the manufacture of clothing the details, so far as they affect human life, are not so injurious. But one commercial result is always perceptible in a short time. Those operatives who can avail themselves of child labor are enabled to underbid their associates, who are also their competitors. Consequently it is a very short time before the{502} income of the family is no larger than it already had been, while the number of persons occupied in earning it has doubled and perhaps trebled.

Just think a moment what all this really implies. A number of people are excluded from all possibility of exercise or recreation and exciting themselves to the utmost to accomplish a given amount of work in a specified time. Children are quicker than grown people to respond to any exciting influence, and the most enthusiastic workers in tenement-house rooms will always be found to be the children. Sometimes this amuses the parents, occasionally it interests them, but more often it is extremely pathetic. To see a child at an early age absorbed in the details of the battle of life would horrify any one of us, yet 100,000 children of this kind can be found in the city of New York, and a large number of them can be found in any one of forty or fifty specified blocks.

There is only one end to this sort of thing. Persistent stimulation and entire lack of recreation or exercise must have a debasing and dangerous effect upon any physique. Much more must this be the case regarding children. Boys and girls are not driven to work as they were in England forty or fifty years ago. They are not flogged if they do not accomplish a certain amount of work in a given time, as they used to be under the good old English customs. But they{503} are just as thoroughly destroyed, physically and mentally, as if they were under taskmasters who were not their own parents.

Children in the country frequently work very hard. A farmer’s life is hard at best, and between necessity and sympathy his children early learn to take part in their father’s endeavors. They rise early in the morning and work perhaps quite late in the night, but they are in pure air even while they are at work. They have an abundance of food and they always see something before them, just as their parents do. Perhaps it is that there is a war abroad and the price of wheat will probably go up a few cents a bushel. Or a railroad is coming in the vicinity of the farm, and acres which have been devoted to common crops and pasture are expected suddenly to attain to the dignity of town lots. There are evening festivities in which all the children take part, and there is also the great and comforting and uplifting American sentiment that each one of them is as good as any one of their richest neighbors, and the fact that they may live in a poorly-built house and not wear quite as good clothes on Sunday as some of their associates can always be overlooked in view of the possibilities of the near future. But before the children of the poor in the large cities there is no prospect whatever of advancement or pleasure or recreation. The old dull{504} grind goes on day by day. While every one is well and every one is at work, the family probably has enough to eat and has a roof over its head; and to that extent it can congratulate itself, for some of their acquaintances and neighbors are not so well off. But the first day that sickness comes into the family the entire aspect of things changes. The work must go on or there will be nothing to live on at the end of the week. The invalid may be put to bed in one of the little closets which are dignified by the name of rooms, but the adult members of the family must continue to work, and so must all who are old enough to assist. If there is a sewing-machine in the room it must go on clicking, no matter if some member of the family is dying. There is no lack of sympathy, no lack of affection, no lack of longing; but all these put together do not take the place of proper medical attendance, pure air and good food. If in any single town of the United States the death rate were as large as it is in the city of New York, the best citizens would pack up their things and run away, no matter at what cost. But New York can lose thirty or forty of every thousand of its inhabitants every year, and the only comment of those who know best about it is that it is a mercy of heaven that the loss is no greater.

The customary way of city people, in avoiding{505} responsibility and deep thought on this subject, consists in saying that the people who live in this way are of low organizations any way, and that they can exist and flourish and grow fat amid surroundings which would kill any decent person. There is some truth in this so far as certain low organizations are concerned. Unfortunately, however, there is no race, sex, nationality or creed among the very poor in the large city. All of them are people who either were born very poor or who, having been reduced to poverty, are endeavoring to make the best of their lot. There are Americans of good name and good family now serving in the commoner mechanical capacities in the city of New York, and only a little while ago it was discovered that the wife of a gallant Major-General, who served the United States faithfully during the late unpleasantness, was “living out” as a domestic servant. It is not a result of poverty, misfortune, sickness or anything of the kind. All those horrors are the results, first of all, of city life, of living where no one knows his own neighbors and where the person who falls into embarrassments or is overwhelmed by misfortune has no one to whom to turn, and takes to anything at short notice and in utter desperation, to keep the wolf from the door.

Cities should be suppressed, but that is impossible. They should be properly policed by persons{506} competent to discover and report those most in need of assistance; but that also seems impossible. The only chance left seems to be that the larger the city the greater shall be the missionary work done in it by all denominations. When Jesus was alive and was anxious to secure the attention of the people, he did not bemoan their sad condition, but on one occasion, when some thousands of them followed him, he himself supplied them with food. The servant is not greater than the master, and religious people, regardless of differences of creed, can find no better work in large cities than to search out the needy and endeavor to lift their feet out of the mire and put them in a dry place, to quote from the inspired psalmist in one of his most eloquent passages.

One good and pressing reason—though a selfish one—for closer and more sympathetic attention to the poor of large cities, is that the great mass of criminals come from the poorer classes, and that when criminals are once made it is hard to unmake them. The famous Inspector Byrne, of New York, the man most feared by wrongdoers everywhere, spends annually a great deal of his hard-earned money in trying to persuade criminals not to drop back into their old ways, but he believes that he only retards their return to crime—not that he effects any reformations. The following words from a man{507} of his stern experience and sympathetic nature are terrible in their warning against neglect of the class from which most criminals spring:

“My personal opinion is that it is utterly impossible to reform criminals. There are certain fancy measures pursued in this city for the reformation of criminals, but they are all bosh; they do not reform the outlaws. To some extent such efforts are made for the purpose of public notoriety. I know people in this city who claim that they want to reform thieves. They get hold of notorious scoundrels when they come out of state-prison, and so long as the thief is a good ‘star-actor,’ and goes from place to place and tells all sorts of things that are villanous and bad about himself (no matter whether they be lies or the truth), he is lauded around by these people as a great attraction. The moment he discontinues that kind of performance they throw him out in the street because he is of no use to them; he doesn’t ‘draw.’

“So far as the efforts of religious people are concerned in this matter of criminal reformation, I say that their efforts are laudable. They certainly mean well. They devote time and money to the work; but they have no practical experience with criminals, and their efforts count for very little. It is sometimes claimed that, under the influence of prayers and preaching, the criminal’s heart is touched, he sees the error of his{508} ways, he is converted; I do not believe it. As the word ‘reformation’ is ordinarily used, I know there is no such experience among thieves.”

It will not do to dispose of the subject by saying that there must be criminals in the world, and that we pay policemen to take care of them. No police force can entirely suppress crime; there are too many evil-doers to be watched, and each has his own style. Inspector Williams, of New York, an officer almost as widely known as Inspector Byrne, and who has had charge of the most dangerous precincts in the city, wrote recently:

“The general public, who look upon criminals as a class by themselves, are apt to think that one criminal is very much like another. This is not a fact. I have been a policeman for nearly a quarter of a century, and I have never seen two criminals who were very nearly alike in character. A Siamese-twinship in the annals of crime is unknown. When we enter the criminal world and seek to deal with its members from any point of view, we must look upon them individually, not collectively.”

All of which means that the only way to lessen the number of criminals is to see to it that wretchedness of the masses of population in our large cities shall not be allowed to send new recruits to the ranks.{509}

CHAPTER XXI.

RELIGION.

OURS is the most religious country on the face of the earth. There are more churches to the square mile of city and village area than any other part of the world, not excepting the grand old city of Rome. They may not be all of the same denomination, but their attendants worship the same God. They may quarrel a great deal about points of faith, but on essentials they are, if not exactly one, so closely related that there is room for any amount of hope. About baptism and regeneration and sanctification and adoption and perhaps damnation they may differ frightfully; but all of them base their belief upon the Apostles’ Creed, and look for their spiritual inspiration to the law of the Old and New Testament, preferably that of the four gospels.

Religion is a life, whatever else it may or may not be. No person who makes any pretence of being religious declines to admit that his creed is the basis of the life which he would like to lead, whether or not he may succeed in making his practice conform to his principles.{510}

That religion consists in proper life with a view to a life to come, or at least that it is so regarded, is proved by the custom which becomes more and more prevalent of judging men and women according to their religious professions.

There was a time when, if a man assented to a given form of faith, his life might be almost anything he pleased; and some of the most active “Defenders of the Faith,” as they styled themselves, whether they were Catholics, Protestants, Trinitarians or Unitarians, have been found among men who would nowadays not be considered fit to introduce into respectable society. The time when such things were has departed, and shows not the faintest sign of ever returning again. To-day a man’s religious profession is regarded as an assertion by himself of what he would have his life, and what he proposes that his life shall be judged by.

A cheering sign of the earnestness and sincerity of religion in modern times is that there is very little proselyting now. People who smile cheerfully at one another during six days of the week, do not glare and frown at one another on Sunday, as they used to do when meeting on their ways to their respective churches, and from the manners of members of different denominations meeting in business or polite society, no one could imagine or discern to what particular creed any one of those people subscribed. The Methodist,{511} the Baptist, the Catholic, the Episcopalian, meet each other cheerily in business and in society, their families intermarry, they have business relations with each other, and no one in indorsing or cashing a business man’s note ever thinks of asking to what particular church he may belong.

In a number of country towns this fraternal feeling has been largely stimulated and strengthened by what are called “union meetings,” in which all the members of all the congregations in the town unite at appointed dates in general services of prayer and worship. Occasionally the pastor of some church in the vicinity may object to taking part in such services, but pastors in congregations are frequently like Congressmen and the people—the followers are ahead of the leader. Only a little while ago a Catholic priest of high repute in his own denomination, and held in high esteem by the entire community in which he was known, ascended the platform at a western camp-meeting, in which denominations differing from his own had united, and made a most earnest undenominational and spiritual address to the entire audience before him.

Revival meetings, however they may be laughed at by the more refined and fastidious of church people, have had the effect in late years of attracting a great many thousands of people toward religious life. The most noted of these were{512} conducted, as every one knows, by Messrs. Moody and Sankey, two men who were never regularly ordained as clergymen by any authority whatever—they are simple laymen and undenominational workers. Yet these men never went to any city or town to begin their peculiar system of work until all, or nearly all, the pastors of churches had united in calling them and had promised to assist to the best of their ability. No effort was made by these men to make converts for any denomination whatever. Their sole purpose was to cause men and women to change their manner of life from that of the ordinary every-day selfishness of the unregenerate man and to compel him to recognize an over-ruling Providence who should also be the guide of his daily life in every respect. Mr. Moody, however “shaky” he may have been according to any theological test, was earnest and sincere enough to say to all the clerical fraternity of any town in which he worked, that he came only to sow seed and that it was the business of others to reap the harvest, and that he cared not into whose flock the lambs were led, so long as they were rescued from the wilderness. The Moody and Sankey movement is open to a great deal of criticism, and probably no one has regarded it with more jealous eye than newspaper editors, yet the editorial fraternity throughout the country has been compelled to admit that the agitation{513} begun by these men had a marked influence for good on whatever community it was exerted.

Such a movement would have been utterly impossible fifty years ago, perhaps twenty-five years ago. To attempt to lead men to God without outlining a road which traversed a great many other roads said to lead in the same direction would have united against the leader all the churches in the vicinity.

There are no fights between denominations now-a-days. A church may fight within its own borders as furiously as a gang of worried dogs, but for the occupants of several different pulpits in any given town or in any portion of a great city to call each other bad names and intimate that the followers of any one but the speaker would find themselves after death in a most uncomfortable and irremediable condition of soul and body is no longer the case. The principal feeling now excited by large success in any particular congregation is one of emulation. If one church holds a successful mission or revival meeting or series of special efforts, and succeeds in persuading a number of people to enroll themselves formally among any band of persons professing to be Christians, the only competitive result that can be seen or heard of is an effort of the neighboring churches to go and do likewise.

Why, it is no longer necessary for churches to{514} be built solely by those who are members of the congregation which is endeavoring to erect the edifice. A subscription for the building fund of a church of any denomination is passed around among people of all faiths and no faith, and money is subscribed as freely and as unreservedly as if the effort was being made simply for the relief of some individual in embarrassment. It has come to be considered in the United States that a church, no matter of what denomination, is a good thing to have in the neighborhood, and the more churches the better. Any man of public spirit or Christian feeling who has any money to spare can be depended upon to subscribe to the erection of a church of any denomination, the Mormon church always excepted.

All this is immensely encouraging to men who regard religion as the greatest moral influence of life, as well as a promise of things less seen yet more important in which the majority of people believe more or less blindly. The change has come about through the different pulpit method that has come in vogue within a very few years. Men have learned to look upon religion of any kind as infinitely preferable to no religion at all. No man who keeps his eyes open has failed to see changes, such as can be accounted for by no other theory, as to the possibilities of human nature, suddenly and quietly achieved through the practice of religious life as indicated by some{515} particular creed. So far as changes in the lives of individuals are concerned, creed seems to make very little difference. Within the lines of all denominations men can be found who, according to every rule and precedent of human nature, should be dishonest, indolent, vile, and brutal, yet who have suddenly become respectable and in all things visible entirely decent. Any attempts to break down religion, as such, are stoutly combated by the entire intelligent portion of the community, barring the few dilettanti who are not certain about anything, and least of all about whatever will make themselves amenable to the moral law. Colonel Bob Ingersoll can draw a large crowd in a large city, but never in his life has he had as large an audience as can be found any Sunday in any one of twenty churches in the city of New York, and were he to enter some of our smaller towns he would find himself with the same proportion of hearers. Most religious people who think—and most of them do think—have periods of doubt on a great many topics which in the earlier portion of their new life seemed to them essentials. Nevertheless they have learned by experience not to change their faith, much less to abandon it, because of some things which they do not understand. Since religion has become a life instead of a mere belief, all men who sincerely practice it have learned that there is a great unknown of human experience{516} beyond which their own lives cannot reach except at certain times and under certain influences, and to abandon what they doubt would mean to them to also forego the fruits of what they already know and believe.

There is not the slightest fear that the United States will become an irreligious nation. Some church pews may be empty, some men may go very seldom to service, or confession, but that most men think and feel the influence of religion upon the young and upon the family circle is too well known and established to admit of any doubt. The heads of families who are most careless about their own personal lives are often most earnest in urging upon their families all the ministrations of whatever churches they may chance to attend. It matters no longer from what denomination is selected the clergyman who shall ask grace at a large public dinner, or open a solemn public gathering with prayer, or as to what may be the creed of the spiritual teacher who may be asked to take part in deliberations upon grave moral interests of the community.

All this is immensely encouraging, and promises lasting good to the nation.{517}

CHAPTER XXII.

WOMAN AND HER WORK.

FOR a whole generation the public has been hearing a great deal of woman’s rights. Already, however, woman has secured one of the greatest rights in the world. She has the right to labor in any capacity in which men hitherto have been employed.

Some close observers have dignified this change by calling it the liberation of woman. But closer observers realize that it is also the liberation of man. Woman is doing a great deal of work which man used to do and which it was supposed only man was competent to do, but woman has stepped in and done it just as well as man ever did, and men, sometimes with thanks and occasionally with curses, have retired to other kinds of labor more fit for strong arms.

The opinion of men on this subject would probably receive no consideration from the gentler sex, but a journal recently started specially to advance the interests of women, declares that at the present time there are over three hundred occupations in the United States, aside from{518} housekeeping, in which women find abundant and remunerative employment. What woman has said, man would be a brute to unsay.

There has been a decided gain to the world by this change, but the greatest gain has been to the sex to which the world has been, if not cruel, certainly indifferent. Woman has been the slave, the plaything, the toy of man so long that it is hard to get out of the public mind the idea that woman is simply an appendage to the ruder being, and that whatever she is or is to have depends upon the generosity of man. The generosity of man is no more to be depended upon by the gentler sex than it is by men themselves. All men are generous when they are not likely to lose anything by it. All men also are selfish, and woman would not now have her present chance in the United States were it not that men saw a gain for themselves in the change.

Woman may not be getting as much money for some kinds of work as man would were he doing the same work himself. But the beginning counts for a great deal in this world. Everybody knows the old saying that the first step is half the battle, and woman has taken the first step. According to the authority above quoted she has taken over three hundred of them, which is more than man can say for himself during the same period.

No matter what may be said by the men who{519} have been displaced by women in the various departments of business; no matter what may be said by unpardonable gossips about women stepping aside from the family circle to do work which has no appearance of domesticity about it, the truth is that the appearance of women in the business world has been of immense service to the gentler sex, and indirectly of great benefit to the lords of creation. It is absolutely necessary to the civilization of the world that the great mass of mankind should realize that woman is something better than a mere dependent on man, and there is no quicker way of teaching this lesson than that of demonstrating that woman is quite competent to take care of herself if she has a fair chance.

A fair chance has been offered. It has been embraced, and some hundreds of thousands of women in the United States are doing for themselves far better than they would have been done for by the men into whose power they would have fallen under the old custom of making a woman’s maintenance and existence entirely dependent upon the male members of her own family.

A large department of industry in which women are employed, outside of household duties, is that of work at the government offices at Washington. Irresponsible newspaper paragraphers used to write a great many ugly things about treasury clerks and pension office clerks{520} and other feminine employés of the government. But that sort of writing has gone entirely out of practice. Seeing is believing, and the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who have yearly visited the national capital are satisfied from their own observation and still more by their personal acquaintance with attachés of the different departments that woman not only knows how to work, but can prolong her efforts and maintain regular hours quite as well as any man; and, to put it mildly, that she is quite as respectable as man.

Still more important, woman has not yet found it necessary to go out to drink. It is a severer joke and comment upon the stronger sex than any man yet has been willing to admit that, while clerks in all departments of the government service at the national capital may be found who deem it necessary to stimulate themselves during business hours, women work the customary hours prescribed, do their work well, and find no need of artificial stimulation.

Does this mean that for sixty centuries the world has been mistaken as to which of the two sexes is the stronger? This is a good conundrum to think over when you have some spare time on your hands.

It has also been reported by the aforesaid irresponsible paragrapher that women clerks at Washington have very little to do, and that the{521} work with which they are charged could be attended to by men with equal celerity and accuracy; but the fact seems to be, according to Cabinet officers of half a dozen successive administrations, that the men work neither so fast nor so well, and cost a great deal more money.

More money probably will come in time. No slave can shake off all his chains at a single blow. Old Samson himself, when he had broken the manacles that bound him, was still blind and had to be led about by the hand. And woman, perhaps, may yet need some instruction and friendly counsel, but where in a single city a great many thousands of the gentler sex are performing arduous labor and living up to exacting restrictions, it is far too late to say anything whatever about the incapacity of woman for persistent labor.

Reference has been made quite freely in this screed to the feminine employés of the government at the national capital, but only because this is the most prominent instance and illustration of the capacity of women to work. Any observer, however, can satisfy himself, if he will, on the subject by looking through prominent business houses in any large city. Where once every desk had a man behind it and all the sales-counters were lined with masculine salesmen, the word now in New York and some other cities is that no man shall be employed at any work for{522} which a woman can be found. Woman has some qualities especially attractive to the management of a large business. She never gets drunk, she seldom goes into speculation, and still less frequently does she look around for something else to do. Male clerks and salesmen are continually on the lookout for something better. They are likely to put their savings into Wall street or some other gambling den. They expect to make a great career in business somewhere, somehow, some time; but woman has the superior quality, or so it seems to her employer, of being satisfied to do well what work she has in hand, and look for nothing else. Consequently, marriage is almost the only influence that can ever remove her from whatever may be her chosen sphere of duty.

But woman no longer is satisfied to work for poor wages. There are in the United States thousands of feminine physicians. There are a few female lawyers, and indeed two or three pulpits have been satisfactorily filled for a number of years by women. Other women can be found as principals of large business enterprises. Everybody in Wall street knows Mrs. Hetty Green, one of the sharpest and most successful speculators in railroad securities that Wall street ever has known. If she has made any losses nobody knows of them. On the other side her gains may be counted by millions by any broker on the street. She and her husband were mutually interested{523} in a large railroad enterprise. Her husband has dropped out of sight. The wife remains, and no broker or operator who is not very new at the business ever attempts to get the better of Mrs. Green. Her fortune has been rolling up steadily until it is estimated almost as high as that of any but the three most prominent men in Wall street, and it continues to roll up. If she has any outside advisers, nobody has ever been able to discover who they are. Her methods are so quiet and straightforward that she mystifies the very elect among railroad men.

The business of editing a newspaper is supposed to call for at least as high a combination of intellectual qualities as that of being President of the United States, and there are men who imagine that the first-class editor would let himself down were he to accept the Presidency. Yet several prominent newspapers in the United States are not only edited, but managed in their business departments by women. They are not those most talked about; nevertheless their stock is not in the market, and it seldom changes hands.

Woman is said to be of quicker sensibilities than man. No one will doubt it who has seen a woman count currency at the Treasury Department at Washington, or handle a type-writing machine in an office in a large city. Recently there have been some exciting contests between{524} type-writers, and most of the winners have been women. In the city of Cincinnati, which contains more artistic furniture probably than the city of London or Paris, the work has been done almost entirely by the eyes and hands of women.

A few years ago Hood’s “Song of the Shirt” was quoted as frequently in America as it once was in England, but nowadays only the stupidest of women, or those caught most suddenly in embarrassments and without any preparation for the battle of life, give themselves to the needle. Men do that sort of work now. Reduced gentlewomen who support themselves by sewing still exist, but they are not easy to find. Instead of making shirts or other cheap clothing at starvation wages, the woman out of employment nowadays turns herself to some specialty of needlework if she knows no other tool or method, and there are “exchanges” at which her work may be displayed and at which orders are given according to the samples shown and at prices which would astonish the old-time slaves of the needle. Women are in all the telegraph offices. They are clerks in thousands of business houses. They are mechanics, artisans and artists all over the country. It has become so much the fashion for women to work that nowadays there are signs in London, Paris and New York of common business enterprises presided over by women with titles. The Princess de Sagan, one of the brilliant{525} lights of the court of the last Napoleon, manages a dress-making establishment in Paris and New York. Other ladies, equally illustrious, are well known in trade circles in London and on the Continent.

All this looks strongly like the emancipation of women, but it does not at first sight convey its full meaning to the observer or reader. The most important result of it all is that woman is thus made independent of man. A woman of brains no longer needs to marry in order to have a home. It would be difficult to suggest the proportion of unhappy marriages which have been due to the fact that admirable women have been utterly unable to care for themselves in the world, and consequently have attached themselves for prudential reasons, although by a revered form and sacrament, to some man. But no longer is this necessary. There are all kinds of women as well as all kinds of men in business, but it is far safer in society to attempt a romantic flirtation with a woman than to make similar attempts in any business circles where women are employed. There are a great many handsome and spirited women in the departments at Washington, but no sentimental young man is fool enough to lounge about these places with the hope of getting up a flirtation. The woman who knows how to support herself is not going to be in haste to marry. When she marries she is going to have a husband,{526} in fact as well as in name, as well as a home. She can afford to wait. She has entire control of her own destiny and she cannot be taken at a disadvantage. Instead of marrying for a home, the tables have been so turned that nowadays a large number of men are on the lookout for women who can give them a home. Plenty of men can be found who are desirous of marrying in order to be supported, instead of marrying for the purpose of supporting somebody else.

The gain to woman in this change of affairs is simply inestimable. It is unnecessary to call any one’s attention to the comparative greatness of risk which woman sustains in entering the marriage relation now, and the helplessness in which she found herself under the old rule, when man was the only wage-earner. Women are working for themselves, even married women, all over the United States. In many of the New England manufacturing towns there are hundreds, and in some of them thousands, of women, already married, working at the same trades as their husbands, but keeping their own separate bank accounts at the savings banks. A man can no longer afford to abuse a woman because she is dependent upon him, and dare not complain, for fear of losing her source of maintenance. A woman of any brains in any industry can care for herself quite as well as any husband is likely{527} to care for her. The consequence is that divorces are very infrequent in New England manufacturing towns. If either member of a married couple is given to lounging and bad habits, it is likely to be the man. It is only fair to say in man’s favor that the temptations are principally on the masculine side. Women have not yet to any extent taken to drink, billiards and politics. They do not bet on horse-races or buy pools on sparring matches or go on excursions to neighboring towns for the sake of indulging habits which are unsafe to make public at home; so the woman of the house is far less likely to be out of work or to be away from her post than her husband.

What the effect of this change in the industrial outlook may be upon children is yet unknown. But it is a fair question, whether the woman whose daily hours are employed at mechanical or clerical occupations is likely to bring up her children worse than the woman whose leisure moments are consumed in small talk and social dissipation. No child can be less cared for than that of the society queen. The commonest washer-woman, who leaves her home at early dawn and does not return until dark, can give her offspring more attention than can be expected by the children of many ladies whose names appear in the fashionable columns of newspapers which give considerable space to that{528} sort of thing. Whether each family should not contain one member whose duties and interests are entirely confined to the home circle, is also a question upon which a great deal can be said upon both sides. But the fact to be brought into prominence at the present time is that woman has already acquired the right to earn her own living and is doing it, to the extent of some hundreds of thousands of women, most admirably. Women are presidents of large colleges in the United States; colleges, it is true, intended solely for the education of members of their own sex; nevertheless the course of study and the subsequent social and literary standing of the graduates shows that the work done in these institutions is well done. The best proof of this is in the better colleges for girls in the United States. The demand for scholarships far exceeds the supply, and there are millionaires in this country who have not yet been able to put their daughters in any one of the three or four best feminine colleges in the land.

In literature woman has made her way to an extent which every one knows, if he reads at all. Our most popular novels are all written by women. Women write a great deal of our poetry. It is impossible to find a first-class magazine which does not contain a number of contributions by women, and those contributions are quite as much talked about and quite as{529}

frequently read as anything written by the most prominent masculine minds in the land. As a novelist, the young woman is immeasurably the superior of the young man. No young man ever wrote a novel as famous as “Charles Auchester” at as early an age (seventeen years) as that of the young lady who is the author of this still much-read book; and our publishers are flooding the market with other novels by women who have not yet reached their majority. If quick perception, facility of expression, and piquant comment are sufficient to make the novelist, our future novels must be written principally by young women. That they make some dreadful blunders is very true. Some of the most abominable books that have been inflicted upon a much-suffering public during the past year have been from the pens of young women who ought to have known better, if they had known anything at all. Nevertheless, it is a great deal easier in literature to tone down than to tone up, and somehow the necessity for toning down has not been apparent to any great extent in fiction and poetry written by young men.

The “restraining force,” to which social philosophers attribute the sudden rise of some family, nation and tribe, may account for the sudden prominence and brilliancy of women in many departments of life. There may be such a thing as inheritance by sex, and a sex long suppressed,{530} as woman certainly has been, in all but the domestic virtues, may have a great deal to give the world and then suddenly fade out of prominence. But at present all odds are in favor of woman. She has made her way so rapidly, though unobtrusively, and so pleasantly, that every man who has the proper manly heart within him will be glad to see her go a great deal further, and believe that she is quite competent to do it.{531}

CHAPTER XXIII.

OUR LITERATURE.

AMERICANS are the greatest readers on earth. Any one can tell you this—any one from a college president down to the newsboy on a railway train.

They read pretty much everything, and never are at a loss for ways of obtaining something to read.

Books are cheaper here than anywhere else in the world, thanks to immunity from arrest and punishment for theft of literary property. We can take the brains of all Europe, as expressed in printed pages on the other side of the Atlantic, and reprint them here without fear of the sheriff, and what man can do without fear of the law he is likely to do so long as he sees any money in it.

There is no section, State or town so poor that its people cannot find something to read when they want it. The inhabitants of a township whose centre is nothing but a post-office, a store and a blacksmith shop, may be too poor to buy{532} a paper of pins, unless they have credit with the storekeeper, but they always are able to find something to read. If there is nothing else, they can fall back upon the Sunday-school books, and nowadays Sunday-school libraries are not as bad as they used to be. Almost any book that is respectable and has any feature of interest can be worked into a Sunday-school library by an enterprising publisher. A Methodist parson, who was congratulated a short time ago on his great success in organizing a Sunday-school in a sparsely settled district in one of the Western States, said, with a long sigh: “These children don’t come here to learn the truths of the Gospel; they come to get books for their families to read during the week.” Perhaps the old man was right in his fear that the religious work of his parish was not going on as well as he wished; he certainly was entirely correct regarding the demand for the books. Children who were dull and listless while the prayers and singing and lessons were going on brightened up quickly when the librarians came in to distribute the books which had been asked for, and the worst boys in town would cheerfully forego base-ball, swimming parties, watermelon stealing, cock-fighting and card-playing for an hour or two on Sunday for the sake of borrowing a book upon which to spend the spare hours of the week that was to follow. A good many people were drawn{533} to Jesus by the loaves and fishes, but books are the most successful bait of the modern church.

But the Sunday-school library is the most modest of the many sources from which the poorer class of Americans draw their reading matter. There are at least a dozen series of novels being published in the United States at the present time on a plan which enables the publishers to dodge the postal laws regarding printed matter by assuming to be serial publications. Under the law any book sent out by a publisher should pay postage at the rate of half a cent an ounce; but a library, so called, may send out its publications under the rules governing serials of every kind, which can be paid for at the post-office at the rate of two cents per pound; consequently for several years there has been an absolute inundation of fiction. Stimulated by this feature of the law, a number of enterprising men have reprinted all the standard novels of the past century in cheap form and distributed them broadcast over the entire country; and, to do them justice, have also issued a number of histories and other standard works in the same manner, and as people have purchased them, it is reasonable to suppose that they have read them.

But books are not all that is read by that great portion of our people who have a great deal of leisure time and no sufficient means of{534} enjoying it beyond reading. A million magazines are circulated every month, and twice as many weeklies. Some time ago the newspapers began to realize this fact, and straightway they supplemented their Saturday or Sunday editions with additional sheets containing miscellaneous reading-matter of all kinds, some of it as good as any that appears in the magazines. The worst of it is quite as good as the majority of current novels; and as the highest price of a newspaper in the United States is five cents per copy, and the supplementary sheets of some papers contain as much as an entire magazine, there is no lack of reading matter for any one who has the price of a glass of beer or a cheap cigar.

Not only is the supply of printed matter great, but the demand is being increased in many ways that are entirely admirable. There are now several societies which at a very trifling cost advise people what to read, and in what order to take certain books in hand. Some of them—notably the well-known Chautauqua Society—have reading circles under advice and partial supervision which number as many people as the students of all the colleges in the country. A number of societies of similar purpose are scattered about the country, each with its list of books which its members are advised to read—books which are carefully selected by men whose literary judgment{535} would be accepted in any intelligent circle in the Union.

One result of the American avidity for reading matter is that the guild of American authors is becoming quite as numerous as that of any other country in the world. The American who does not write a book is almost a curiosity at the present time, and generally thinks it necessary to explain why he has not already done something of the kind, and when and how he would be able to do it. The stories which are published in cheap form in the United States are largely from foreign pens, but it is known to those who observe the subject closely that the number of American authors is increasing more rapidly than in any other country. Any one here who knows anything on a particular subject, or who has any reputation or prominence for any reason whatever, is asked to write a book, and such invitations are very seldom declined; for if the man cannot write, he can at least hire some one to put his thoughts into words. Men who in older countries would be ashamed to take pen in hand at all to produce anything for publication, have here received enormous compensation for single volumes on subjects with which they merely were acquainted, not those upon which they had any reason to be quoted as authority.

Even in the serious department of history we{536} have recently seen numerous books from men notoriously unfit in point of judgment to inflict anything of the sort upon a confiding public. But money is offered as an inducement, pen and ink are cheap, type-writers are plentiful, so the work goes merrily on, and it may need all the wisdom of another generation to correct the mistakes which have been made in print by writers of the present time.

Nevertheless, the steady demand which seems to be profitable to both authors and publishers is inciting the intelligent and educated class to efforts which once would have been impossible except to the very small number who were sufficiently well off to regard their literary work as a labor of love, and to expect no compensation except what might come from approving consciences. The modern novelist frequently gets more for a single volume than the elder Hawthorne received for all the books of his incomparable series. Literature has become a business as well as an intellectual occupation. Mr. Bancroft probably expended more money upon his well-known “History of the United States” than was received by those who sold his books at retail, but nowadays the writer of an alleged history can count upon as much pay for a hastily prepared book as a prominent lawyer would expect to receive for handling a case requiring long study and effort.{537}

These things being true—and authors and publishers will assure the public that they are—it is entirely safe to assume that we are soon to have a highly successful and valuable class of writers in the United States. “The coming book,” an expression which must soon go out of date, may be a history, a poem, a biography or a novel, but there will be so many more books than heretofore, that a work of great merit in any department of literature will possibly have to wait until another generation for proper recognition. There is so much to read that no book-worm can keep pace with the publishers’ presses. The last new novel may be very good or very bad, but whichever may be the case the general public stands very little chance of knowing, for before it has had time to reach the hands of many readers a dozen more have come from the press, and it is only chance or an exceptional degree of merit, which it is unfair to expect of any one more than once in a century, that will bring a book properly to notice.

For instance, some years ago Gen. Lew Wallace wrote a story entitled “Ben-Hur,” which sold fairly for a little while, but made no great excitement in the literary world. Fortunately for the author and the book, which certainly was an original and meritorious production, Gen. Wallace had an immense host of personal friends who little by little had the book brought to their{538} notice; they read it and talked about it, until finally, by this unsolicited and unpaid advertising, his story became famous and is now in its third hundredth thousand of circulation, with a promise of going on perhaps indefinitely.

Two years ago Mr. Edward Bellamy wrote his “Looking Backward.” It was a thoughtful, able story, touching many of the nearest interests of humanity, but it sold only a few thousand copies, and seemed making its way to the backs of booksellers’ shelves, when two or three essays upon the general subject recalled attention to it. The people of a single city—which, of course, was Boston—took it up first as a fad, and afterwards as a serious study, and now the book is in general demand and promises to renew and widely stimulate public discussion of a very old subject which must come to the surface once in a little while until perhaps it becomes a recognized principle of human conduct and existence.

These are merely two of many books of great value, or at least great interest, which have been saved from the general literary deluge by means which seem merely accidental. Of the many which have been lost perhaps irrevocably the public has no idea. Hawthorne himself, to whom allusion has already been made, was not read one-twentieth as much by the people of his own day as now. Carlyle, who probably is more read in America than in{539} Europe, owes his popularity here and the great sale of his works to the personal efforts of his friend, Mr. Emerson, who insisted that the book should be published in this country, but who would not have succeeded had not his own publishers had reasons for wishing to oblige him personally.

These facts regarding literature are not peculiar to America. Many years ago an Englishman named Charles Wells wrote a dramatic poem which did not pass its first edition of a few hundred copies. About a quarter of a century later Swinburne chanced upon a copy of the book, and wrote a review of it, which set all lovers of dramatic poetry to looking for the poem itself, and now it is making its way through edition after edition. Only ten years ago Browning’s latest long poem, whatever it may have been, was refused successively by nearly all reputable American publishers, yet the Browning craze is now a matter of history.

The meaning of all this is that books come from the press far more rapidly than people can read them, but the ease of circulation of literature in the United States promises to change all that. There is now scarcely a town of two thousand people in the United States which has not its circulating library, and which has not also some people who are thoughtful, intelligent and influential. A book getting into such a library{540} is sure, sooner or later, to find a large number of readers. The individual reader is the best advertisement that either author or publisher can ask for, and though the first edition may be very small, so small that the publisher hesitates to reprint, nevertheless in time a book of any value is sure to be brought properly to the attention of the public.

There is every reason, therefore, to believe that our native authors, and many people who can write and should write but have not yet felt encouraged to do so, will yet be stimulated to do their best work. A prominent publisher in New York was once asked—the question being suggested by a poor book which he had published on a very interesting subject—why he did not secure a better man to write it? “For the best reason in the world,” said he; “the men who could do justice to the subject are all making their living in some other way and have to pay close attention to their business. They can’t afford to write books.” This lack of financial encouragement is rapidly disappearing. The man who has anything to say in this country and knows how to say it properly can now afford to give time and thought to his subject, with the assurance that, when he is ready to write and to print, he will find readers.

It does not follow that everything written with earnestness and sincerity of purpose is worth attention. “Great minds think alike,” but not all{541} great minds are properly educated, and we get an immense number of books, supposed by their authors to be original, whose contents are mere skeletons of what has been better expressed by some one else. The publisher often finds himself in the position of the patent office examiner. It is well known that at the patent office applications in large numbers are received every week for letters patent on supposed inventions which were made long ago by some one else, but of which the latest applicant was entirely ignorant. Men of thoughtful and inventive minds reproduce each other in every clime. There is not a savage tribe on the face of the earth which did not find out for itself the art of making cutting tools, building houses, constructing boats, cooking utensils and whatever else might be necessary to domestic life and its many necessities. The same holds in literature. Certain self-evident truths of philosophy or ethics, certain plots and situations in fiction, are common to all classes of people; and the consequence is that our literature is burdened with material of every kind, from the highest theology to the lowest sensation, which seems mere plagiarism on something which has preceded. Even Longfellow, who is nearer the American heart than any other of our poets, was persistently accused of plagiarism because he expressed thoughts and ideas which had been said as well, sometimes better, by older poets; yet{542} Longfellow was supposed to be a man of wide reading.

But American facilities for reading and for learning all that has been said by the wiser minds and more brilliant wits of other times is bound to change all that, and probably within the lifetime of the present generation. Besides from the incidents, peculiarities and necessities of our own national life, our literature is now extending into all fields heretofore monopolized by the wiser minds of the old world. American essays, poems and novels are now frequently reprinted in Europe and translated into many languages. Many American novels may now be found in several of the older languages of Europe, and the popular author of the present day does not consider his work done until he has sent copies of his original manuscript to at least two European publishers. The French Revue des Deux Mondes, which is supposed to be the most fastidious of foreign publications in its selection of material, has given a great deal of space to American novelists and poets, and again and again English novelists have complained that some upstart American was crowding their books off of the railway station news-stands. Emerson’s essays, Longfellow’s poems, and Howell’s novels may be found in any bookstore in England, and it is not hard to find them on the continent. There are half a dozen different editions{543} of Poe’s poems in the French language alone. American historical works not entirely on American topics may be found in several European languages, and are held in high esteem by foreign historians. One historical work published in the United States two or three years ago has already been translated into every language of Northern Europe. How many more there may be deponent knoweth not.

All this is cheering, not only to national pride, but because there are features in American literature which are superior to those of any older nation. This is noticeably true of our fiction, in which there are elements of cheerfulness, hope and humor, which are almost entirely lacking in the light literature, so-called, of other countries. When one speaks of a foreign novel from any press but that of Great Britain the supposition naturally is that it relates entirely to the closer relations of the sexes; that the end of it will not be entirely pleasing; and that, however strong its plot and diction, it will not be what is called “entirely proper,”—it will not be a book which one can safely take home without reading and leave on the table of his sitting-room for wife, children and visitors to pick up at random.

Some of that sort of stuff has come from the American press of late years, more’s the pity, but it promises to be rather sporadic and accidental than a prominent feature of our literature. It{544} resembles an outbreak of yellow fever in a Northern port—something which may get there by accident and do mischief for a little while, but which cannot effect a permanent lodgment. The mass of unclean stories which ventured into the daylight of print after the publication of Amelie Rives’ sensational novel is already beginning to disappear. When for a day or two a city chances to fall under mob law, the world seems turned upside down for the time being; but the better sense and strength of the community soon come to the rescue and the dangerous element is suppressed. A similar result is already being accomplished regarding pernicious fiction. Publishers who have hastily accepted stories which their professional readers pronounced “strong” are beginning to apologize for offering such stuff to the public.

American literature will be marked by a hopeful, cheerful, clean, energetic spirit, and as such it will give our people what they cannot easily obtain from the presses of foreign countries. We have faults enough, of which mention has frequently been made in this book, but lack of respectability and of hopefulness are not among them. Our novels are cleaner than those of any other land; our history in the main is decidedly cheering and stimulating in its influence; our poetry, although perhaps not as elegant as that of Europe, has a great deal more of inspiration in it for readers, and our{545} fiction is based upon the life of our own people, which is in the main respectable. Incidents and scenes as bad as any that the world can supply may of course be found in American life by those who choose to look for them, but they are not likely to be written up or read to any extent, except by the vulgar classes. Books about which intelligent and cultivated people on the continent will talk freely in social circles are scarcely tolerated here; some of them are reprinted, but the editions as a rule are very small. Translations of continental novels have generally failed dismally in a commercial sense in the United States. There are a few exceptions, but the rule is so distinct that no one of literary taste, ability and intelligence now wastes his time in translating foreign novels in the hope of securing American publishers. The native writer as a rule is not as skilful as his foreign brother, but he successfully tells our people of what they wish to know. He is in sympathy with their thoughts, tastes, customs and aspirations, so his stories and essays are found in all our weekly papers and magazines, while more skilful productions of foreign pens, which might be had for nothing, are generally excluded. There is no longer any question as to whether we shall have a literature of our own. We have it. It is increasing in volume more rapidly than our people can follow it. It is a good sign. It means that we are a “peculiar people”—not perhaps{546} in the sense in which the expression was used regarding the ancient Hebrews, yet in some respects it means the same. Conceit aside, it really means that we are better than other people. Long may we remain so!{547}

CHAPTER XXIV.

AMERICAN HUMOR.

THE burden of foreign criticism of the people of the United States may be expressed in the language of the vulgar by saying that we are “too fresh.” Well, if we are, we have the salt that will save us, and that salt is American Humor.

Whatever may be the failing of any American, whether native or adopted, he may generally be depended upon for a sense of humor. If there is no other point of contact between him and the stranger who encounters him, it is quite safe to fall back upon humor as a common meeting ground.

This is the only country in the world in which everybody indulges in joking. Other countries have their wits and humorists who are a special class among themselves. But here any and every man must have a sense of humor and know how to use it if he wants to get along with his fellow-citizens.

Some of our most humorous men are solemn judges. Others are physicians. Editors are{548} humorists as a matter of course, and even the clergyman with a level head leans to the belief that his education is incomplete until he can turn a joke as well as he can preach a sermon.

We joke about everything. This does not mean that we make fun of everything, but that, as everything has its possible humorous side, we are competent to see it and call attention to it.

There is no department of American history, political, military, social or religious, in which traces of the humorist may not be found. There was considerable sense of fun among the grim old fellows who came over in the Mayflower, as any one may find out for himself if he will take the trouble to look to the original records, and in the many volumes of correspondence which have appeared in genealogical history of the first families of New England. There is quite as much sense of humor manifested as in similar records of the first families of Virginia. It is the custom in history to draw a sharp dividing line between these two classes of American pioneers, but the line disappears as soon as one gets beneath the surface. Solemnity and seriousness, whether counterfeit or genuine, can be maintained for only a certain length of time by any one. So Puritan and Cavalier speedily went back to a distinguishing trait of their common ancestors in the old country, and improved upon it.{549}

In the United States no subject is too sacred to joke about; or, at least, too sacred to be examined in the light of humor. Americans as a class are a reverent people. They would not for the world make fun of the Deity, but many of them talk of the most sacred sentiments and personages with a familiarity and play of humor which terribly shock some of the formalists from the other side of the water. When Mr. Lowell wrote his earlier series of the “Bigelow Papers” his verses were read with much curiosity and some delight in Europe, but suddenly the entire English press was horrified by his lines:

This was pronounced by one high English literary authority the most irreverent and blasphemous expression that ever had appeared in print; but Mr. Lowell replied by saying that familiarity was not irreverence; that the early American was intimately acquainted with his God—he had to be. There was no other friend upon whom he could rely, and conscientiously he talked about Him in a half playful but always affectionate manner, which was the custom regarding the earthly parents of the period.

It is impossible to go anywhere in American society, no matter how high nor how serious the subject under consideration may be, without encountering, generally to the hearer’s benefit, the{550} American spirit of humor. Congress may be in session and the country almost convulsed by some grave discussion which is going on, nevertheless on the floor of the House and far more in the committee-rooms and in the lobby one is sure to hear the strongest arguments advanced in humorous form. They are called jokes, but some new word should be coined to give them the dignity which their usefulness has enabled them to attain.

The most serious man in appearance in the United States, excepting none of the early Puritan divines, was probably the late President Lincoln. His visage was not only earnest and solemn but positively mournful whenever it was in repose. He was a debater of high order, he was a logician whom men who had held him in contempt for his homely ways and awkward manner learned to respect as soon as they crossed verbal swords with him, but Lincoln’s strongest argument was always a joke. He said and wrote many things which were grand in their day, but which seemed to have been entombed in printed pages and diplomatic papers, for one seldom hears them quoted now-a-days; yet his jokes still live. They are perennial, not merely those which were attributed to him, but those which he really made. “To clinch a point,” which was one of his own favorite expressions, he tried the patience of his Cabinet severely at times by persisting{551} in joking upon serious subjects—matters of great moment at the time; and it is said upon good authority that once he opened the Cabinet meeting called specially with the hope of averting great disaster to the Union cause by reading the last printed letter of “Petroleum V. Nasby on the Democratic doings at Confederit X Roads, State ov Kentucky.” Before the meeting was over, however, Mr. Lincoln read his Emancipation Proclamation. While Mr. Seward, as able and adroit a man as ever held the portfolio of Secretary of State, would be wondering how to reply to an annoying committee or deputation which had come from some one of the Northern States to instruct the Government how to carry on the war, Mr. Lincoln was quietly constructing a little joke or recalling one from his past experiences which would be appropriate to the occasion, and after the joke was inflicted upon the committee Mr. Seward was sure to find that his own carefully prepared speech was entirely unnecessary.

But it is not only in political circles that humor has been made to serve the cause of good government, good morals and the highest degree of righteousness in the United States. The members of the Supreme Court of the United States are all practical jokers; that is, they all are fond of avoiding a long-winded argument by telling a story illustrative of the question at{552} issue. Ministers do the same. A meeting of clergymen of any denomination is likely to result in some very sharp discussion which closely approaches to ill temper, but in such cases some one may always be depended upon to get up and tell a humorous story which gives point to the proceedings, and also gives them a new direction and acts like oil upon the troubled waters. Humor is tolerated even in the pulpit. The late Henry Ward Beecher frequently made his congregation laugh on Sunday, and some of the newspapers criticised him severely for it, but he seldom lost a parishioner on that account, and thousands of people—who never otherwise would have heard him—were brought under his spiritual influence by appreciation of a faculty that drew them into closer sympathy with him as a man. A preacher of a very different stamp, the Rev. Sam Jones, of Georgia, never hesitates to tell funny stories, always illustrative of his subject, while delivering his talks, and Sam addresses larger congregations than any other American preacher of the present time.

Humor makes its way everywhere in the United States. Newspapers are full of it, and the most high-toned and serious of them find it necessary to supply their readers with jokes. A New Yorker recently held a neighbor to account for reading habitually a very serious and almost bilious daily newspaper. “I don’t read it much,”{553} said he, “but I buy it because its funny column contains a better assortment of jokes than any other paper in the city.” The principal editorial writer of a large New York daily paper, a paper of wide circulation and great influence, once complained to the managing editor that all the point of a leading article to which he had devoted two days of thought had been expressed in the paragraph column by a joke one line long.

The public meeting is the truest, the fairest expression of American opinion in any given locality, but in the public meeting it is always the humorist who sways the audience and carries the day. He may be one of the stated speakers, a man of great wisdom and force, for wisdom and wit are closely allied in the American nature, however the celebrated couplet of the late Alexander Pope about “great wit and madness” may seem to indicate the contrary. In the great political discussions, now historic, which once were conducted by Abraham Lincoln and Senator Douglas, when both were comparatively young men, and the Democratic champion got his adversary into a corner, as occasionally he did, Lincoln always got out of his predicament with a joke—never with an argument—and the audience never failed to see the point. This shows the universality of the American sense of humor. In any other country of the world the peasantry, who are the nearest possible parallel to the{554} farmers of America, are stupid and dull of comprehension, but an American crowd, no matter how far away from the centres of civilization, nor how solemn, and serious, and weary, and dull of comprehension their faces may seem, can always be depended upon to take the point of a joke. They are equally quick to resent an attempt at humor which is not correctly and sharply pointed. They are all humorists themselves. Get a seat on the wagon of a farmer driving along a country road and engage the man in conversation, and you will hear more sharp, pithy, humorous sayings than you are apt to get from any professed wit in polite society. Let the man meet a brother farmer coming from the opposite direction, and, although the conversation will naturally turn on the crops, and the taxes, and local government, and family or individual misfortunes, the conversation is sure to be spiced with humor. In other countries it seems to require a jolly fellow, a man of high spirits, to say funny things; but here, if you chance not to expect the man of solemn visage, the man bowed down with care, to break out humorously, you are sure to be agreeably disappointed.

Even in stated religious meetings this quality of the American nature frequently displays itself unexpectedly, but always with effect. As solemn and religious gathering as can be seen in the United States is the camp-meeting in the far{555} West, where people come from many miles around to listen to the only form of religious service which they have the privilege of attending. The sermons and prayers are intensely earnest. The speakers have an immense sense of responsibility of the duties incumbent upon them, but in sermon, and even sometimes in prayer, expressions break forth which show that in no circumstances can the native American be free from the domination of his sense of humor. The most powerful individual influence that ever existed in the Western camp-meetings, according to historians sacred and profane, was a man named Peter Cartright, a Methodist preacher. He would move audiences to tears and sometimes to groans by the eloquence and earnestness of his preaching, yet suddenly, at the most unexpected times, he would say things that would put his entire congregation into paroxysms of laughter. The purpose of the meeting never was disturbed by these discursive efforts. They were as much to the point as the most earnest statements and exhortations which he had previously made, and were entirely in keeping with the general intentions of the service.

Passing from conversation to printed utterances, it may be safely said that the humorous writings of Americans have been more read than any other literature which has appeared from our press. We have many able editors in the United{556} States, but those most read are those who say the funniest things. There never was a more influential editor in the United States than the late George D. Prentice, who for a long time managed the newspaper which now is the Louisville Courier-Journal. Prentice was a Whig, but probably half of his readers were Democrats. They didn’t like his politics, but they couldn’t get along without his fun. His paper was published in a Southern State, a slave State, but more than half of its circulation was in the free States of the North. While Prentice lived there was scarcely a post-office in the Mississippi or Ohio Valley which did not receive copies of it by mail. Its influence extended as far North as Chicago and the North-western States, and the local paper which didn’t repeat his humorous bits was likely to be informed by its readers that there must be a reform in that direction. For many years the most popular portion of the very good editorial page of one of the most prominent daily papers of New York was its humorous editorial. The topics of the writer were seldom those of the great interests of the day, yet people read it, turned to it the first thing, talked about it to their friends, compelled them to read it, and felt lost when the writer of those articles was transferred to a different field of labor.

We have some popular poets in the United States, but it is doubtful whether the works of{557} any of them have been as much read as Mr. Lowell’s “Bigelow Papers.” Mr. Lowell is no mean poet himself; there are critics who insist that he has not an equal among American versifiers, but the humorous verses just alluded to have made him better known than all of his more serious efforts, and it is believed by intelligent men of all parties that it had immense effect in bringing about the political changes which immediately preceded the late civil war.

During the civil war there were many editors who used to say, with some evidence of annoyance, that they wished they could be read as much as Nasby. Nasby was an Ohio editor who invented a scene and some characters in the South, and wrote about them so persistently and with such a realistic air that his effusions were copied regularly in almost all of the Republican papers of the land. Another man who was more read than any editor of the day was Artemas Ward. He did not go into politics to any great extent, but what he did say was so accurately satirical that nearly everybody read it and was the wiser for it. The mistakes of our generals, the blunders of our government and the crimes of many of our contractors were the subject of a great deal of vigorous editorial writing, but no one succeeded in bringing them so forcibly to the attention of the public as a wit who wrote under the nom de plume of Orpheus C. Kerr. During the{558} same period there were facts in the local history of New York extremely uncomplimentary to one great political party, and the opposing party lost no opportunity to disclose them and criticise them in editorial columns and news columns, but one man was more read than all others combined. It was the man who wrote the satire entitled “The New Gospel of Peace,” in which the doings of the alleged Peace Party were set forth in humorous style.

At the present time the men whose writings are most read are not the historians, editors, essayists, or even novelists. They are the humorists. Bill Nye is more read than any novelist in the United States. So is James Whitcomb Riley. In Chicago there are a number of able journalists, but the one most quoted by name not only in his own city but throughout the Union is Eugene Field, whose humor finds no subject too great or too small to dwell upon. A little while ago an edition de luxe of his humorous prose and verse was published at a very high price, and some of the later would-be subscribers found to their disgust that the list was full and no more books could be supplied. Is there any poet or novelist in the United States who has had a commercial experience like this?

Mr. John Hay, once a Secretary of President Lincoln, and afterward a hard-working journalist, is also a poet, and has perpetrated some graceful{559} verses, but when any one offers to quote a bit from John Hay, the hearers always understand that it will be something humorous. His dialect poems do not exceed half-a-dozen, yet they seem as popular now as when first written twenty years ago. They were not carefully elaborated; the author is said to have dashed them off in a hurry as a relief from hard editorial work, but they struck the popular heart at once, probably because, like most other American humor, there was a basis of seriousness and sense to them. The finale of his poem, “Little Breeches,”—a poetic story of a lost child who was saved, as his father supposed, by angels, will long be the most popular and effective protest against formal religious ideas. He says of the angels:

Was there ever a greater commercial success in literature than that achieved by Mark Twain? The combined books of the most successful American novelist have not sold as many copies as one of Mark Twain’s books. Why? Because Mark Twain is funny—because he knows how to say something in a way in which nobody else has said it. Scores of other men have written about the Holy Land and our own West, but it was not until “Innocents Abroad” and “Roughing{560} It” appeared that people in general began to manifest a lively interest in these portions of the world. Innumerable sketches have been written about life on the Mississippi River in the old days before railroads and emancipation, but all of them combined did not “catch” the public as successfully as “Huckleberry Finn.” The latter was humorous, the others were not; there was no other point of difference.

It does not matter, to the American people, from where humor comes, so it really is humorous and has a point to it. We will take it in any shape or dialect. One of the great successes of humorous literature during the civil war was that achieved by Col. Charles G. Halpine, who made a mythical Irish soldier, “Private Miles O’Reilly,” his mouthpiece for a lot of humorous criticisms of the Government, the army and navy. During the same period there arose a Southerner, signing himself “Bill Arp,” who made some hard hits, in humorous style, at the North; somehow they found their way through the lines and were freely reprinted at the North. In later years another Southerner—the creator of “Uncle Remus,” put a lot of delightful stories into negro dialect, and a host of people at once began to quote them. In New York Mr. Julian Ralph wrote a lot of humorous sketches under the general head of “The German Barber,” and the newspaper press began to quote them.{561} Across the ocean Max O’Rell began to satirize the English people and customs, and straightway his books sold better here than abroad.

On the stage and platform, as everywhere else, humor is the most popular and attractive feature. A few years ago, before the theatrical companies could easily reach any city or large town, the lecture was a favorite means of entertainment, and more than three hundred Americans and foreigners were busy every winter in hurrying from town to town to deliver lectures. The three hundred have been reduced almost to three, but there is room there still for any one who has anything humorous to say. “Bob” Burdette, more popularly known as “The Burlington Hawk-eye Man,” works himself almost to death every winter in going all over the United States to give his humorous recitations. He is a very religious man, and a working Baptist, but people never ask him for a religious address: they always want to hear his fun. Another of the few successful men remaining on the platform is A. P. Burbank, a man who for ten years has determined every year to go upon the stage in legitimate comedy, but so humorous are his recitations and so effective his manner in delivering them that those who have heard him before insist upon hearing him more, and he goes again and again to towns where he has been a dozen times before, each time to find his audience{562} larger and more appreciative, and each time to receive the assurance that they will want him again the following winter. Little Marshal Wilder, who never took a lesson in elocution in his life, and has been cruelly handicapped by nature, attempts merely to make people laugh; he succeeds, so he seldom is allowed to have an evening to himself, and when the “platform” season is ended here goes over to England and has three or four engagements a night.

Everybody knows that on the stage humor takes better than anything else. There may be a great tragedy well presented on the boards of a city theatre, or a brilliant spectacle, or a so-called emotional drama which appeals to everything improper in human nature, but the theatre which is presenting a good comedy can always depend upon holding its own. No dead-head seats are to be had at such theatres. The manager can always depend upon getting money for all the room at his disposal. The fun may be very rough, sometimes it is decidedly vulgar, but people ask as few questions and make as few protests against fun, no matter what its kind, as drunkards do against the quality of their whiskey.

American appreciation of humor may be found also in the number and wide circulation of periodicals devoted entirely to fun. There used to be a theory that there was no room for a{563} humorous paper in the United States because the ordinary dailies and weeklies indulged in so much fun themselves. But after the enormous success of Puck, Judge, Life, and some other periodicals, it is useless to argue any longer on the subject. After a political or social question has been apparently worn threadbare in editorials and essays, out comes one of these papers with a pithy saying or a good cartoon that carries more influence than all the serious talk combined. It matters little upon which side of the question, even in politics, these professional humorists are found. Their hits when well made are cheerfully acknowledged even by their own enemies. During the palmy days of the New York ring, Mr. Nast, the cartoonist of Harper’s Weekly, was offered an annual allowance several times larger than his salary if he would give up work entirely and go abroad. Humor and high character are often allied; one of the strongest illustrations of the fact is that Mr. Nast without any hesitation refused this valuable offer. Some of the abuses of local government in New York have been more effectually fought by Mr. Keppler and his associate artists in Puck than by all the work of editors, lawyers and judges. Puck’s influence in politics became so great that before the last Presidential campaign began it became absolutely necessary for the party which it was fighting to start a humorous pictorial journal of their own, and it{564} was quite safe to suppose that it was influential in the political results that followed.

A delightful thing about humorous writings is that no one seems jealous of their influence or afraid to give them greater prominence. The only complaint which the publishers of the humorous weeklies have to make against their brethren of the daily press is, that their own circulation might be better were not so many of their good things promptly reprinted everywhere. No sooner does one of these papers come from the press than its best sayings are scissored and reprinted in a thousand or more papers. Almost any daily paper of large circulation seems to think it necessary to have a humorist of its own. They pay more for humorous contributions than for any other class of matter, and all of them are more keenly on the look-out for a new humorist than for a possible Presidential candidate. The readers of the daily press quote for one another the funny sayings of their favorite paper long before they think of mentioning the other contents; indeed, most of them are so absorbed by the fun that they don’t seem to have remembered anything else.

We cannot possibly overestimate the value of our national faculty of seeing the humorous side of things. It keeps us from making ourselves ridiculous; it prevents us, both as individuals and a people, from being laughed at for anything{565} we may do in sober earnest. It is very hard, in this day and land, for any man, society, party or church to be a fool without hearing about it in a good-natured way that robs the rebuke of its sting. It is not so in other countries.

But our sense of humor does still more for us. It smooths numberless rough places in the pathway of a people whose road is not easy to travel. It averts many a quarrel, closes dangerous breaches, and is balm to wounds that otherwise would smart. It is almost always harmless. There are men and women whose fun always lingers upon incidents that are vulgar, but this is a fault of perverted minds—not of the humorous spirit. It is a better introduction, between strangers, than any letter or form of words, and it expresses much in little, doing it more effectively than any of the wise saws and proverbs of more serious races. It seems irrepressible and omnipresent; a man or woman may be too tired or sick to reason or to think, but whoever saw an American too weary to see the point of a joke or to offer another in return? We need to preserve our humor almost as carefully as if it were our character, for should we ever lose it our character will be the worse for the change.{566}

CHAPTER XXV.

THE HIGHER EDUCATION.

AMERICA has more colleges, so called, than all the other civilized nations combined.

These institutions of learning are not results of accident, or accretions of church reverences and purposes, like the great universities of older lands. Most of them were founded and have been maintained by the people at large, and these, until recent times, were very poor. They are testimonials to the level-head and tenacity of purpose of the American people. Says President Gilman, of Johns Hopkins University:

“That tenacity of purpose with which a few settlers in the wilderness held on to the idea of a liberal education, in spite of their scanty crops and scantier libraries, their wide separation from the old-world seats of learning, and their lack of professional teachers, is one of the noblest of many noble traits possessed by our forefathers, who were never so weary or so poor that they could not keep alive the altar-fires in the temples of religion and of learning. Their primitive foundations did not depend on royal bounty or on feudal{567} liens; they were supported by free-will offerings from men and women in moderate circumstances, by the minister’s savings and the widow’s portion. It is only within the present generation that large donations have reached their coffers. The good and the bad we inherit in our collegiate systems were alike developed in the straitened school of necessity.

“The founders of the original colleges were not only high-minded and self-sacrificing, but they were devoted to an ideal. They believed in the doctrine that intellectual power is worth more than intellectual acquisitions; that an education of all the mental faculties is better for the happiness of individual scholars and for the advancement of the community than a narrow training for a special pursuit. Accordingly, their educational system did not begin with professional seminaries, for the special training of any one class, but with schools of general culture, colleges of the liberal arts, as good as could be made with their resources and in that age. Instead of an academic staff made up of those who professed to teach some special branch of knowledge, these colleges had a master and fellows (or tutors), men who were fit to teach others those rudiments of higher learning in which they had themselves been taught. Moreover, as years rolled on, instead of concentrating personal and pecuniary support upon a few of the oldest and most{568} promising foundations, far-sighted men built up in every portion of the land colleges corresponding in their principal features with the original foundations, and depending for maintenance on the beneficence of individuals.

“The history of the colonial foundations abounds in examples of the wisdom and self-sacrifice with which they were conducted under circumstances which called for devotion to a lofty ideal. No one can study the biography of their graduates without discovering that they were the men who moulded the institutions of this country. It is easy to point out deficiencies in these academic organizations, as it is to criticise the defects of the emigrants’ cabins and the foresters’ paths; it is easy to lament that a deeper impression was not made upon the scholarship of the world; easy to mention influential men who never passed a day within college walls; easy to provoke a smile, a sneer, or a censure by the record of some narrow-minded custom or proceeding. But, nevertheless, the fact cannot be shaken that the old American colleges have been admirable places for the training of men. Let the roll of graduates of any leading institution be scrutinized, or even the record of a single class selected at random, and it will be seen that the number of life failures is very small, and the number of useful, intelligent, high-minded and upright careers very large. It may, therefore,{569} be said that the traditional college, though commonly hampered by ancient conditions and by the lack of funds with which to attain its own ideal, has remained the firm and valiant supporter of liberal culture, and that any revolutionary or rabid changes in its organization or methods should be carefully watched. Nevertheless, as we proceed, it will be evident that changes are inevitable and that most desirable improvements are in progress. The child is becoming a man.”

But we need more concentration of effort, money and good men, both as instructors and students, in colleges where the highest education may be obtained. The great number of our colleges is a source of weakness—not of strength. A great number of these institutions are mere academies, and seem to have been founded principally to keep students within the denominational fences of their parents; the college is charged with what should be the special work of parent and pastor. Says President Gilman:

“Every important Christian denomination has come to have its distinctive college, and many an argument has been framed to prove that sectarian colleges are better than those which seek to promote the union of several religious bodies. It has not been thought sufficient that a college should be pervaded by an enlightened Christianity, nor even that it should be the stronghold of{570} a simple evangelical life and doctrine, nor that it should be orthodox as to the fundamental teachings of the Church; but sectarian influences must everywhere predominate, among the trustees or in the faculty, or in both the governing bodies. Hence we see all over the land feeble, ill-endowed and poorly manned institutions, caring a little for sound learning, but a great deal more for the defence of denominational tenets.”

President Eliot, of Harvard, thus indicates the results of this spirit, added to another which is still less pardonable:

“In the absence of an established church, or of a dominant sect in the United States, denominational zeal has inevitably tended to scatter even those scanty resources which in two centuries have become available for the higher education; and this lamentable dissipation has been increased by the local pride of States, cities and neighborhoods, and the desire of many persons, who had money to apply to public uses, to found new institutions rather than to contribute to those already established—a desire not unnatural in a new country, where love of the old and venerable in institutions has but just sprung up. In short, the different social, political and religious conditions of this country have, thus far, quite prevented the development of commanding universities like those of the mother-country.”

As the greater colleges increase in financial{571} and intellectual strength, the weaker ones must either drop out of existence, or be satisfied to impart merely the high-school course of instruction, and prepare their more aspiring pupils to enter colleges worthy of the name. Ex-President White, of Cornell University, foreshadows their future as follows:

“Our country has already not far short of four hundred colleges and universities more or less worthy of those names, besides a vast number of high-schools and academies quite as worthy to be called colleges or universities as many which bear those titles. But the system embracing all these has by no means reached its final form. Probably in its more complete development the stronger institutions, to the number of twenty or thirty, will, within a generation or two, become universities in the true sense of the word, restricting themselves to university work; beginning, perhaps, at the studies now usually undertaken in the junior year of our colleges, and carrying them on through the senior year, with two or three years of special or professional study afterward. The best of the others will probably accept their mission as colleges in the true sense of the word, beginning the course two years earlier than at present, and continuing it to what is now the junior year. Thus they will do a work intermediate between the general school system of the country and the{572} universities, a work which can be properly called collegiate, a work the need of which is now sorely felt, and which is most useful and honorable. Such an organization will give us as good a system as the world has ever seen, probably the best system.”

There is no lack of money for institutions of learning which show special aptitude in any direction. A belief in thorough education is common to almost all progressive men, whether they themselves are college graduates or “self-made” men. President White, after naming many men who have given largely to different colleges, says:

“Such a tide of generosity bursting forth from the hearts and minds of strong and shrewd men who differ so widely from each other in residence and ideas, yet flowing in one direction, means something. What is it? At the source of it lies, doubtless, a perception of duty to the country and a feeling of pride in the country’s glory. United with this is, naturally, more or less of an honorable personal ambition; but this is not all; strong common sense has done much to create the current and still more to shape its course. For, as to the origin of this stream, the wealthy American knows perfectly that the laws of his country favor the dispersion of inherited wealth rather than its retention; that in two or three generations at most his descendants, no matter{573} how large their inheritance, must come to the level determined by their character and ability; that their character and ability are most likely to be injured, and therefore the level to which they subside lowered, by an inheritance so large as to engender self-indulgence; that while, in Great Britain, the laws and customs of primogeniture and entail enable men of vast wealth to tie up their property, and so to found families, this, in America, is impossible; and that though the tendency toward the equalization of fortunes may sometimes be retarded, it cannot be prevented.

“So, too, as to the direction of the stream; this same common sense has given its main channel. These great donors have recognized the fact that the necessity for universal primary education will always be seen, and can be adequately provided for, only by the people as a whole; but that the necessity for that advanced education which can alone vivify and energize the whole school system, drawing a rich life up through it, sending a richer life down through it, will rarely be provided for, save by the few men wise enough to understand a great national system of education, and strong enough efficiently to aid it.

“It is, then, plain, good sense which has led mainly to the development of a munificence such as no other land has seen; therefore it is that the long list of men who have thus distinguished{574} themselves and their country is steadily growing longer.”

But in opposition to the spirit which founded and has supported our many institutions of learning there has arisen a pestilent theory, born of the sudden increase of wealth and love of luxury, that no education is worth anything which does not enable a man to make more money and make it easier than his neighbor who has had no liberal schooling. Because technical schools—of which the more we have the better off we will be—teach men to use their wits about many practical things, there seems to be prevalent a stupid notion that material things are all there are of life, and that sentiments, principles and aspirations are not worth cultivating. Such stuff might do if we were a nation of shopkeepers, but we are not that kind of people. For each man who is thinking and caring only for money and what it will bring him are half a dozen earnest, clear-headed people who know that all human needs are not satisfied when the stomach is full and the senses satiated.

In a recent and admirable address to a college society Bishop Potter fairly stated and answered the current sneer at the higher education, as follows:

“We are met by a spirit which it is time, I think, that we recognize, as there is a need that it should be challenged. We Americans are, of{575} all peoples under the sun, supremely a practical people. No mechanism is invented, no book is written, no theory is propounded, but that straightway there is heard a voice demanding: ‘Well, this is all very interesting, very novel, very eloquent; but what, after all, is the good of it? To what contrivance, to what enterprise can you hitch this discovery, this vision of yours, and make it work? How will it push, pull, pump, lift, drive, bore, so that, employed thus, it may be a veritable producer? Yes, we want learning for our young men, our young women; but how can it be converted by the shortest road and in the most effectual way into a marketable product?’ ‘The man of the North,’ says De Tocqueville, writing of our North, ‘has not only experience, but knowledge. He, however, does not care for science as a pleasure, and only embraces it with avidity when it leads to useful applications.’ And the worst of such an indictment is the fact that it is still so often true.

“The conditions of this generation demand that we should be reminded that, beyond bodies to be clothed, and tastes to be cultivated, and wealth to be accumulated, there is in each one of us an intellect to be developed and, by means of it, truth to be discerned, which, beside all other undertakings to which the mind of man can bend itself, should forever be foremost and supreme. The gratification of our physical{576} wants, and next to that the gratification of our personal vanity or ambition, may seem to many people at once the chief end of existence and the secret of the truest happiness. But there have been men who have neither sought nor cared for these things, who have found in learning for its own sake at once their sweetest rewards and their highest dignity.

“The vocation of the scholar of our time becomes most plain. He is to take his stand and to make his protest. With a dignity and a resolution born of the greatness of his calling and his opportunity, he is to spurn that low estimate of his work and its result which measures them by what they have earned in money or can produce in dividends. Here, in his counting-room or his warehouse, sits the plutocrat who has amassed his millions, and who can forecast the fluctuations of the market with the unerring accuracy of an aneroid barometer. To such a one comes the professor from some modest seat of learning among the hills, minded to see his old classmate of other days, to grasp his hand again, and to learn, if it may be, how he fares. And the rich man looks down with a bland condescension upon the school-fellow who chose the company of his books rather than the companionship of the market-place, and as he notes, perhaps, his lean and Cassius-like outline, his seedy if not shabby garb, and his shy and rustic{577} manner, smooths his own portly and well-clad person with complacency, and thanks his stars that he early took to trade. Poor fool! He does not perceive that his friend the professor has most accurately taken his measure, and that the clear and kindly eyes that look at him through those steel-bowed spectacles have seen with something of sadness, and something more of compassion, how the finer aspirations of earlier days have all been smothered and quenched! In an age which is impatient of any voice that will not cry, ‘Great is the god of railroads and syndicates, and greater yet are the apostles of ‘puts’ and ‘calls,’ of ‘corners’ and pools!’ we want a race of men who by their very existence shall be a standing protest against the reign of a coarse materialism and a deluge of greed and self-seeking.

“But to have such a race of men we must have among us those whose vision has been purged and unsealed to see the dignity of the scholar’s calling. One may not forget that among those who will soon go forth from college halls to begin their work in life there must needs be many to whom the nature of that work, and in some sense the aims of it, are foreordained by the conditions under which they are compelled to do it. One may not forget, in other words, that, with many of us, the stern question of earning our bread is that which most urgently{578} challenges us, and which we cannot hope to evade. But there is no one of us who may not wisely remember that, in the domain of the intellect as in the domain of the spiritual and moral nature, ‘the life is more than meat and the body than raiment,’ and that the hope of our time, or of any time, is not in men who are concerned in what they can get, but in what they can see. Frederick Maurice has well reminded us how inadequate is that phrase which describes the function of the scholar to be the acquisition of knowledge. Here is a man whose days and nights are spent in laborious plodding, and whose brain, before he is done with life, becomes a store-house from which you can draw out a fact as you would take down a book from the shelves of a library. We must not speak of such a scholar disrespectfully; and in a generation which is impatient of plodding industry, and content, as never before, with smart and superficial learning, we may well honor those whose rare acquisitions are the fruit of painful and untiring labor. But, surely, his is a nobler understanding of his calling as a scholar who has come to see that, in whatsoever department of inquiry, it is not so much a question of how much learning he is possessed of, as, rather, how truly anything that he has learned has possessed him. There are men whose acquirements in mere bulk and extent are, it may be, neither{579} large nor profound. But when they have taken their powers of inquiry and investigation and gone with them to the shut doors of the kingdom of knowledge, they have tarried there in stillness and on their knees, waiting and watching for the light. And to these has come, in all ages, that which is the best reward of the scholar—not a fact to be hung up on a peg and duly numbered and catalogued, but the vision of a truth to be the inspiration of all their lives.”

Among the departments of higher education at which the self-styled “practical” man turns up his nose are the mental, moral and political sciences. They are sneered at as a mass of mere theories; good enough, perhaps, to help intellectual natures otherwise unoccupied to pass away the time, but of no practical good in the world. Yet President Gilman, whose mind runs largely upon applied science, says of these studies:

“They have twofold value—their service to the individual and their service to the state. It is by the study of the history of opinion, by the scrutiny of mental phenomena, and by the discussion of ethical principles, that religious and moral character is to be developed. The hours of reflection are redeemed from barrenness and made fruitful, like sand-plains irrigated by mountain-streams, when they are pervaded by{580} the perennial currents which flow from the lofty heights of philosophy and religion. Above all other educational subjects in importance stands philosophy, the exercise of reason upon those manifold and perplexing problems of existence which are as old as humanity and as new as the nineteenth century. For its place in a liberal education no substitute need apply. What is true of the moral sciences in reference to individual character may be said of the historical and political sciences in relation to the state. That nation is in danger of losing its liberties, and of entering upon a period of corruption and decay, which does not keep its eye steadily fixed on the experience of other nations, and does not apply to its own institutions and laws the lessons of the past. The evils we complain of, the burdens we carry, the dangers we fear, are to be met by the accumulated experience of other generations and of other climes.”

Yet this distinguished teacher would not, like some men of equal note but less breadth of character, have the college student restrict himself to these departments of study. He shows himself abreast of the times when he says:

“A liberal education requires an acquaintance with scientific methods, with the modes of inquiry, of observation, of comparison, of eliminating error and of ascertaining truth, which are observed by modern investigators. Such an{581} acquaintance may be better secured by prolonged and thorough attention to one great department of science, like chemistry, physics, biology, or geology, than by acquiring a smattering of twenty branches. If every college student would daily for one or two years devote a third of his study time to either of the great subjects we have named, or to others which might be named, he would exercise his faculties in a discipline very different from that afforded by his linguistic and mathematical work. He would not only find his observing powers sharpened; he would find his judgment improved by its exercise on the certainties of natural law. He would never afterward be prejudiced against the true workers in science, nor afraid of the progress of modern learning. Whatever might be his future vocation, ecclesiastical, educational, or editorial, he would speak of science with no covert sneer and with no suppressed apprehension. The more religious his nature, the more reverent would he become. In public affairs which call for a knowledge of science, he would know how to discriminate between the quack and the authority, and he would be quick to perceive in how many departments of government the liberal use of scientific methods is now imperatively demanded.”

If no other purpose could be attained by raising the standard and broadening the scope of{582} such of our colleges as aspire to the rank of universities, and of sending to them all of our young men who sincerely desire a liberal education, there would be the enormous gain, to each student, of association with men of his own kind. Such association elsewhere is almost impossible in this land of scattered population and magnificent distances. Many ill-balanced “cranks” might have been spared us could active, restless, inquiring minds have been placed amid congenial surroundings instead of chafing against barren environments and consuming their minds over trivialities. Edward Everett Hale is credited with the saying: “The main good of a college is not in the things which it teaches; the good of a college is to be had from the ‘fellows’ who are there and your association with them.” President Dwight, of Yale, while dissenting from the sweeping first clause of Mr. Hale’s assertion, admits:

“But ‘the fellows’ did me much good in the way of my education. I had a most excellent and worthy set of friends, especially in the last year of my college life. My associations with them drew me out of myself, and gave me, in the best meaning of the term, the sense and the impulse of good-fellowship. As bearing upon my preparation for my life’s work, this association did much to give me that common sense, and sympathy, and warm-heartedness, and love of{583} young men, and comprehension of their nature and their feelings, the value of which is so great to a college teacher. The college friendships, in their best development, came to me at the most fortunate period—in the later years of the course. They came at a time when they could operate most healthfully and happily upon all that I had gained from my studies and my teachers, and rounded out for me, if I may so express it, the education which belonged to the university.”

One requisite to the greater success of our higher colleges is a better class of students. When fees for matriculation and tuition formed an important part of the income from which a school had to maintain itself, an applicant’s defects of preparation or personal character were winked at; but this no longer is necessary at Yale, Harvard or any of the half dozen younger universities which have been richly endowed. No one should be received as a student who does not “mean business” and who is not quickly responsive to the influences about him. Says Prof. Shaler, of Harvard:

“It is very clear that the essential aim of our higher educational establishments is to take youths who have received a considerable training in preparatory schools, who have attained the age of about eighteen years, and have begun to acquire the motives of men, and fit them for the higher walks of active life. To the youth must{584} be given a share of learning which may serve to enlarge to the utmost his natural powers. He must be informed and disciplined in the art and habit of acquiring information. He must also be disciplined in the ways of men, in the maintenance of his moral status by the exercise of his will, in self-confidence and in the faithful performance of duty for duty’s sake. Every influence which tends to aid him in putting away the irresponsible nature of the child should be brought to bear; every condition which will lead him to send forth his expectations and ambitions from his place in the school to his place among men should surround him.

“Once bring a young man clearly to feel that his career in life is fairly begun when he resorts to college or the professional school; let him but conceive that his place in life is to be determined by his conduct in preparation for it, and we bring to bear a set of motives which are morally as high as the ordinary motives of discipline are low in the moral scale. Just so far as the work of a student abounds in suggestions of his work in the world, so far as his teachers by their conduct, as well as by their words, serve to arouse his manly, dutiful sense, the education effects its true end. Every youth who is fitted to be a student in our higher colleges or universities will quickly respond to the stimulus he feels in passing from the disciplinary conditions of childhood{585} to those which are fit for men. If he be in spirit capable of scholarly manliness, we may be sure that his imagination has forerun the conditions he has met in his lower schooling. He has longed for something like the independence and responsibility of manhood; for an advance to the place of trust to which he is bidden.”

Our higher colleges should not become retreats for that large, lazy, irresponsible class of young men and women who mistake fondness for reading for a desire to study. There is no more deceptive creature alive than the juvenile book-worm. He is like the English king who became noted as “the most learned fool in Christendom.” Neither should feebleness of body be regarded as an indication of vigorous intellect; this mistake has filled colleges as disastrously as pulpits. The seriousness of ill-health is not an intellectual purpose; it is a mental disease, and should be treated by the gymnasium instructor—not the college professor. President White, in outlining the university of the future, said:

“A long observation of young men and young women has taught me that there is infinitely greater danger to their health, moral, intellectual and physical, from lounging, loafing, dawdling and droning over books, than from the most vigorous efforts they can be induced to make; and I believe that most thoughtful teachers will agree with me on this point. In order to meet{586} any danger of the sort suggested, it will be observed that I have insisted on a proper examination as to physical condition at the same time with the regular examinations for scholarships and fellowships, and also upon frequent reports from the successful candidates as to health as well as progress. The expectation of such examinations and reports would do much to guard and improve the health of ambitious young scholars in every part of the country.”

Our higher colleges contain some admirable instructors, but the average quality is not yet what it should be. President Gilman says:

“For the ordinary instruction of under-graduate students men of broad, generous, varied culture are needed; men who know the value of letters and of nature in a plan of study; men who understand their own views because they are watching the necessities and the transactions of to-day with the light of historical experience; men who believe that character, intellectual and moral, is more important than knowledge, and who are determined that all the influences of college life shall be wholesome. Such teachers as these have hitherto constituted the faculties of American colleges; their names may not have been made renowned by any new discoveries or by the publication of any great treatises, but they have impressed themselves on generations of pupils who have in their turn helped to form{587} the best institutions which maintain the nation. It will be a great misfortune to American education, if, in choosing specialists for collegiate professorships (as must be done in future), the authorities fail to make sure that these specialists are men of general cultivation, of sound morals and of hearty sympathy with the youth they are to teach.”

But what are college trustees to do? Most of the great gifts to colleges are for special purposes—the erection of buildings, the purchase of instruments, the founding of a library, the purchase of a telescope, but seldom for the purpose of securing a valuable addition to the faculty by an endowment which would yield a sum that would justify a man of high attainments in abandoning a lucrative profession and devoting himself to education. Says President Gilman:

“Is it not time for all who are interested in college foundations to call for large donations for the increase of ‘the wages fund?’ Ought not the college authorities to keep in the background their desire for better buildings, and insist that adequate means must first be provided for the maintenance of instruction? It will be suicidal if a prosperous country like this suffers its institutions of learning to be manned by men of second-rate abilities because they are cheaper, and because the men of first-rate powers are turned away from the work of higher education{588} to the professions of law and medicine, to the ministry and to business pursuits, as giving more hope, more comfort and more freedom, with equally good opportunities of usefulness and with prospects of higher honor. It will be a shame if the hoary head in a college, instead of being a crown of glory, is a sign of poverty and neglect. A college professorship should be liberally paid, and with an augmenting salary, so that, in this respect, it may be at least as attractive as other careers which are open to intellectual men. If the very best men are not secured for the work of instruction, and if they are not made so easy in their pecuniary circumstances as to be free from care on that account, farewell to intellectual advancement, farewell to literary progress, farewell to scientific discovery, farewell to sound statesmanship, farewell to enlightened Christianity; the reign of bigotry and dulness is at hand.”

Our colleges need more scholarships and more fellowships. It ought to be possible for any one desirous and deserving of a good education to obtain it, whether he be son of a prince or son of a pauper. It ought also to be possible for a brilliant and studious graduate to be specially rewarded and encouraged by being supported by his Alma Mater so long as he continues his studies to some purpose and for the benefit of the college. The “fellow” of an English university{589} may be a mere loafer; his title and its accompanying allowance of money call for no return; they are merely rewards for what has already been done. President White says:

“I would allow the persons taking fellowships to use them in securing advanced instruction at whatever institution they may select at home or abroad. Probably the great majority would choose the best institutions at home, but many would go abroad and seek out the most eminent professors and investigators. Thus, eager, energetic, ambitious young American scholars would bring back to us the best thoughts, words and work of the foremost authorities in every department throughout the world; skill in the best methods, knowledge of the best books, familiarity with the best illustrative material. From the scholars thus trained our universities, colleges and academies would receive better teachers; our magazines and newspapers writers better fitted to discuss living political, financial and social questions; the various professions men better prepared to develop them in obedience to the best modern thought, and the great pursuits which lie at the foundation of material prosperity—agriculture, manufactures and the like—men better able to solve the practical problems of the world. Every field of moral, intellectual and physical activity would thus be enriched. All would be anxious to train students{590} fitted to compete successfully for these fellowships, and the stronger institutions would be especially anxious to develop post-graduate courses fitted to attract these. I can think of no better antiseptic for the dry-rot which afflicts so many institutions of learning. The custom of shelving clergymen unacceptable to parishes in college professorships would probably by this means receive a killing blow.”

Bishop Potter writes as earnestly on this subject, though from a different point of view:

“We want place for men who, whether as fellows or lecturers, shall, in connection with our universities, be free to pursue original investigation and to give themselves to profound study, untrammelled by the petty cares, the irksome round, the small anxieties, which are sooner or later the death of aspiration, and fatal obstacles to inspiration. It is with processes of thought as it is with processes of nature—crystallization demands stillness, equanimity, repose. And so the great truths which are to be the seed of forces that shall new create our civilization must have a chance first of all to reveal themselves. Some mount of vision there must be for the scholar; and those whose are the material treasures out of which came those wonderful endowments and foundations which have lent to England’s universities some elements of their chiefest glory must see that they have this mount of vision.”{591}

Higher education does not require that college discipline, direction and supervision should be abated; on the contrary, it demands more active exercise of all these functions. Some quite good and earnest men go to college only to read; their proper place is a large library in a city. Others, taking advantage of “elective” studies, want to plunge into a groove and remain there. Elective studies have their advantages, but young men are seldom fit to select for themselves. Says President Bartlett, of Dartmouth:

“From the fact that he has not been over the field, the youth is incompetent to judge what is the best drill and culture for him. And while diversity of ultimate aim may modify the latter part of the basal education, specialism comes soon enough when the special training begins. And those institutions seem to me wisest which reserve their electives till the last half of the college course, then introduce them sparingly, and not miscellaneously, but by coherent courses. A general and predominant introduction of electives is fruitful of evils. It perplexes the faithful student in his inexperience. It tempts and helps the average student to turn away from the studies which by reason of his deficiencies he most needs. It gives opportunity to the lazy student to indulge his indolence in the selection of ‘soft’ electives.”

Fortunately discipline is not so hard to maintain{592} in American colleges as in European universities. There are some “hard boys” at Harvard, and the Yale Cubs often make night hideous at New Haven, nevertheless the American student is generally more respectable and law-abiding than his foreign brother. Says President Eliot, of Harvard:

“The habitual abstinence from alcohol as a daily beverage, which the great majority of American students observe, explains in some degree the absence in American institutions of all measures to prevent students from passing the night away from their college rooms or lodgings. The college halls at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton stand open all night; while at Oxford and Cambridge locked doors and gates, and barred and shuttered windows, enforce the student’s presence in his room after 10 P.M., but are most ineffectual to restrain him from any vice to which he may be seriously inclined. There is more drunkenness and licentiousness at Oxford and Cambridge than among an equal number of American students; but this fact is due rather to national temperament, and to the characteristics of the social class to which English students generally belong, than to anything in university organization or discipline. Among manly virtues, purity and temperance have a lower place in English estimation than in American.”

So sensible are the mass of American students{593} that when the question of undergraduate participation in college management was raised at Dartmouth the college societies reported adversely on the plan, and the college paper, edited by students, manfully asserted, after a plea for strong government, “What our colleges really need is more of West Point.”

Between proper government and amateur police work, however, there is a wide difference. Ex-President McCosh, of Princeton, who was a studious, quiet man, whom no one could have suspected of sympathy with wild hilarity, said:

“There may be colleges, but they are few, which are over-governed by masters who look as wise as Solomon, but whose judgments are not just so wise as his were. In some places there may be a harsh repression of natural impulses, and an intermeddling with joyousness and playfulness. I have known ministerial professors denounce infidelity till they made their best students infidel. The most effective means of making young men skeptics is for dull men to attack Darwin and Spencer, Huxley and Tyndall, without knowing the branches which these men have been turning to their own uses. There are grave professors who cannot draw the distinction between the immorality of drinking and snowballing. It is true that we have two eyes given us that we may see, but we have also two eyelids to cover them up; and those who{594} have oversight of young men should know when to open and when to close these organs of observation. I have seen a band of students dragging a horse, which had entered the campus, without matriculating, into a goody-student’s room, and a professor with the scene before him determinedly turning his head now to the one side and now to the other that he might not possibly see it. I have witnessed a student coming out of a recitation-room, leaping into a wagon, whose driver had villanously disappeared, and careering along the road, while the president turned back from his walk that his eyes might not alight on so profane a scene.”

But between mere fun and out-and-out brutality Dr. McCosh drew the line sharply when he said:

“It is certain that there are old college customs still lingering in our country which people generally are now anxious to be rid of. Some of them are offsets of the abominable practices of old English schools, and have come down from colonial days, through successive generations. Thus American hazing is a modification of English fagging. It seems that there are still some who defend or palliate the crime—for such it is. They say that it stirs up courage and promotes manliness. But I should like to know what courage there is in a crowd, in masks at the dead of night, attacking a single youth{595} who is gagged and is defenceless! It is not a fair and open fight in which both parties expose themselves to danger. The deed, so far from being courageous, is about the lowest form of cowardice. The preparations made and the deeds done are in all cases mean and dastardly, and in some horrid. I have seen the apparatus. There are masks for concealment, and gags to stop the mouth and ears; there is a razor and there are scissors, there are ropes to bind, and in some cases whips or boards to inflict blows; there are commonly filthy applications ready, and in all cases unmanly insults more difficult to be borne by a youth of spirit than any beating. The practice, so far from being humanizing, is simply brutalizing in its influence on all engaged in it. It does not form the brave man, but the bully. The youth exposed to the indignity this year is prepared to revenge it on another next year. A gentleman who knows American colleges well tells me that in those in which hazing is common in the younger classes the very look of the students is rowdyish. It is astonishing that the American people, firm enough when they are roused, should have allowed this barbarity to linger in our colleges, great and small, down to the last quarter of the nineteenth century of the religion of purity and love.”

Our universities and more progressive colleges{596} are slowly but surely reshaping themselves on the lines indicated in the foregoing pages, and the time is not far distant when no graduate can be excused for being merely book-stuffed instead of educated.{597}

CHAPTER XXVI.

OUR GREAT CONCERN.

OURS is the greatest land in the world, and we, the people of these United States, ought to be the greatest people.

At the present time it does not require any great amount of conceit to make us believe that we are superior to our neighbors, but it will not do to forget that the faculty of being up and growing is not one of which we have a monopoly.

One of the founders of the Republic said: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” He might have added that it is the price of pretty much everything else worth having and keeping.

We Americans have led the world in a great many respects in most unexpected ways and at unexpected times, but seldom does a year pass in which we do not discover that we have no monopoly of the art of taking the lead. In one way or other, some nations of the earth are continually showing themselves superior to us in some respects. We have needed a great many warnings of this kind, and we will need a great many more{598} unless we act more promptly upon those which have already been granted us.

We have had enough success in other days to make us very conceited, so it is natural that occasionally we fall behind our competitors through the blindness of our fancied security. There was a time when American sails whitened every ocean, and more American ships could be seen in foreign ports than those of two or three other nations combined. The man who would now go out in a foreign port to look for an American flag, determining not to break his fast till he found one, would stand a fair chance of starving to death. Whether the disappearance of our flag from commerce is due only to the ravages of the Alabama and her sister privateers, or to the navigation laws now in force, is not to the point of the present situation, which is, that unexpectedly to ourselves and all the rest of the world we have taken the lowest position among the nations as carriers of what we have to buy and sell, and that we do not show any indications whatever of ever resuming our old position.

Another instance: Within the memory of half the people now alive, the world heard that Cotton was king, and, as cotton was obtainable only from America, Americans proudly assumed to be the commercial rulers of the world. Owing to a little family trouble on this side of the water, the other nations began to look about elsewhere for{599} their cotton. They found some in unexpected places, and have been finding it there ever since. We still produce more cotton than any other country, but we are not kings of the cotton market any longer.

Then came the time when Corn was king. It is true we did not ship much of it in the grain, but between putting it into pork and putting it into whiskey, our corn became the first cause of the loading many thousands of ships to different foreign countries. Foreigners have eyes in their heads and they began to look about and see whether they could not produce pork and whiskey as cheaply as those people across the water, who had to send their products three thousand miles or more to find a market. They succeeded. At the present day, although our distilleries and pig-styes are in active operation, a great deal of distilled liquors and also a great deal of the meat of the hog comes this way across the ocean. The market still is good abroad for American hams, sides, shoulders, bacon and lard, but the bottom has dropped out of the whiskey market, and seems to show no signs of a desire to return.

For a number of years, and until very recently, our wheat had made us commercially, in one sense at least, the superior of all the other nations of the world. The finer breadstuffs were not to be had in Europe except from American sources. Year by year the price of wheat increased until{600} the American farmer became so enviable an individual that a great many merchants went out of business, bought farms, and attempted to compete with him. As is usually the case when any business is so flourishing that every one wishes to go into it, endeavors were being made by hundreds of sharp-eyed observers to see whether wheat might not be more profitably produced in other portions of the world, and the success which attended these observations has been anything but gratifying to the American farmer. Russia and Hungary are producing more wheat than ever before. Wheat is pouring into Europe from Asia, and even from Africa, and the American farmer now is not quite so sure as to what will be the result of a good crop of wheat—not sure whether it will yield a profit or fail to pay expenses. Even the reductions in freight rates, alike from the agricultural districts to the seashore and from America to Europe, do not compensate him for the great reduction in the price of what once he fondly believed was an enduring source of profit. The time when it was safe to put an entire farm into wheat has passed. Farmers are studying mixed crops now with all the intelligence that is in them, for a man’s first duty is to earn food for his family.

Again, when it was discovered that, helped by some refrigerating process, we could send fresh meat to Europe, the whole country arose, cheered{601} and patted itself upon the back. Now, surely the whole world would be at our feet, for were we not feeding Englishmen, Frenchmen and Germans cheaper than any of their home producers could do it? Our self-satisfaction increased when it was discovered that live cattle also could be sent over to Europe in immense quantities and pay a handsome profit in spite of occasional losses due to storms and injudicious loading of the vessels which carried the animals. About this time ranches began to cover all ground in the far West that was fit at all for grazing, and the estates, nominally the property of those who managed them, came to be of baronial extent. But what America could do, Australia began to think she also could do, and even South Africa was not averse to experimenting in the same direction. We still send a great deal of meat to Europe, but ranch property is not as much in demand as once it was. There are ranches now to be had for the taking, but the takers are few.

Just before the ranch fever began, we struck oil—struck it in such immense quantities, and also found men so competent to make it fit for general use, that petroleum in some of its forms promised to be the leading export article of the United States. There was not a civilized quarter of the world in which one couldn’t find the American kerosene oil can. Our oil still continues to go abroad in immense quantities, but{602} the fortunes which have been made upon it have stimulated prospectors all over the world, and, as it is known that oil is not restricted to any single hemisphere, or even grand division of the world, the prospects begin to look rather dismal for America retaining supremacy in this particular article of commerce. The Asiatic oil wells are far more valuable than ours and are worked at less expense, and the supply can be distributed in Europe quite as easily and cheaply as that from the American wells and refineries. Evidently we can’t afford to depend upon oil alone. Large fortunes have been made upon it, but there is an old song which says: “The mill can never grind with the water that is passed.” We need something new to keep us at the fore. What it is to be has not yet been discovered.

Some few unfulfilled expectations of this kind, some great commercial disappointments, are probably necessary to divest us of part of the overweening self-confidence which is peculiar to the inhabitants of all new countries. Simple and unquestioning belief in manifest destiny and all that sort of talk has quite a stimulating effect at times, but it also is likely to lull people into a false sense of security. It already has done so to a large extent in the United States. We have been so well satisfied that we were superior in intelligence and resources to any other land on the face of the earth that we have been{603} inattentive to some of our greater interests. The shipping of raw materials of any kind is a reputable division of industry, but it is not the highest result at which a nation should aim, nor should any amount of success at it blind the people to their greater duties, responsibilities and opportunities.

On the other hand, no other nation of the world has so much as we to be thankful for and to encourage them. We have no bad neighbors who are strong enough for us to be afraid of, and all the greater powers of the world are far enough away to take very little interest in us, unless we annoy them in some way. We do not have to squander the energies and sometimes the life-blood of our race by putting all our young men into armies and navies and teaching them distrust, suspicion, cruelty and the spirit of rapine. Our taxes are heavy, but, on the other hand, our national debt, once so enormous, is being reduced with such rapidity that soon we will show the world the astonishing spectacle of a great nation without a debt. There is nowhere else in the world where a person with money to invest and desiring it to remain absolutely secure, no matter at how small a rate of interest, cannot quickly obtain the securities of his own government for his gold or notes, but here there is very little encouragement any longer to buy the national bonds, for they are being redeemed at a{604} rate which makes it almost impossible for any one to retain them with certainty for a long time as a permanent investment. Holders of the debts of other countries expect never to have their principal redeemed; they are satisfied to get interest perpetually, as undoubtedly they will unless the debts are repudiated. There is very little possibility of any foreign country of the first class ever discharging all of its financial obligations so far as principal is concerned, unless it provokes a fight with the United States and holds our cities for ransom. If we must, and certain economists say we must, continue to extract a large amount of money from the pockets of the people, we will at least have the satisfaction of seeing it spent for something besides dead horses.

We also are reducing the proportion of our uneducated and ignorant classes at a rapid and gratifying rate. Other countries are working in this direction with more skill, thoughtfulness and accurate appliances, but, on the other hand, they have to contend against the apathy of a large portion of the population, an article which, happily, in this country is of very small proportions. Besides the vast mass of uneducated beings who have come to us as immigrants, we have also the entire colored population of the South, but schools are built so rapidly and all classes of our people, even the most ignorant of blacks, are so{605} ambitious to be as good as any other class, that it is not at all difficult to get children to school and to persuade parents to take a hearty interest in education. Whatever may be our faults in the future, ignorance promises not to be one of them.

There is another side to this subject, and one which cannot too quickly begin to turn the thoughtful portion of the public. “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” is a sentiment which has frequently been quoted. The inherent right of every citizen to reach the highest office of the government has so stimulated ambition that almost any one is willing to try for the position whether fit or not, and the same statement holds good regarding every other place of trust or profit in public or private life. Half-educated men, men of almost no education, have brought this country to great peril again and again. Their numbers are constantly increasing. We must be on guard against them. Misdirected activity is worse than no activity at all, but there is something worse than that, and it is the ceaseless ambition of men whose conscience does not keep pace with their intelligence. The school supplies intelligence, but conscience is something which cannot be made to order, and no institution under charge and supervision of a government can be expected to supply it. The nations of the Old World have attempted to do it for{606} centuries through the medium of the church, but good and noble and self-sacrificing though the church has been at many times and in many lands, its ministrations cannot be forced upon those who are unwilling to receive them.

The only available substitute is a high standard of public morality. This is voiced by the press, by the pulpit and in private life; but, unfortunately, when it reaches the domain of politics, it immediately becomes confused and enfeebled. A higher standard must be set by parties and maintained by the leaders and voters and adherents of those parties. The hypocrisy of all political utterances has been proved over and over again during the past few years in the United States. No man of honesty and high purpose can help blushing for shame when he reviews the broken promises of his own political organization, no matter what it may be. “Promises, like pie-crusts, are made to be broken,” says the practical politician, and while for three years and six months of every four the respectable citizen protests against such shameful disregard of public and private morals, in the remaining six months he is likely to give his tacit assent and his active vote to the party with which he has always acted in politics, regardless of who may be its leaders and what may be its actual intentions. Until both parties line down this disgrace and dishonor there will be a weak joint in our{607} armor and our enemies will sooner or later discover a way of piercing it. “Righteousness exalteth a nation,” says an authority which most Americans regard with great respect—except during a Presidential campaign.

The stability and peace of our nation should be the great concern of our people, and as there is not a private virtue which may not be influential in this direction, each individual has it in his power to further the great purpose of the community. All the other nations envy us—envy us our form of government, our freedom from conscription, large armies, privileged classes, vested rights, ugly neighbors, churchly impositions and hopeless debts. But we can maintain all these features of superiority only by maintaining an honest and intelligent government. We cannot do it by being blind, unreasoning partizans of any political organization. To be a “strong Democrat” or “strong Republican” is often to be contemptibly weak as an American. Loyalty to party often means disloyalty to the nation. Party platforms are seldom framed according to the will of the majority; they are framed by the leaders, and often for the leaders’ own personal purposes. In all other lands where constitutional government prevails the intelligent classes sway from one party to the other, according to their opinion of measures proposed. Loyalty is accorded to the nation first, the party afterwards. The party{608} is regarded as a means, not an end; it must be so regarded here, before we can rise to the level of our opportunities, and the number and greatness of these opportunities make this duty more imperative here, even for selfish reasons, than anywhere else. It is peculiarly stupid and disgraceful that any intelligent American should be able to say, with Sir Joseph Porter, in “Pinafore:”

No party should be a voter’s ruler; it is his servant, and if it is lazy, dishonest or does not obey him, it should be disciplined or changed.

We must do much else, by way of vigilance. We must insist that American land be held only by Americans. A great many rich men on the other side of the Atlantic are willing and anxious to reproduce here a state of affairs that has made endless trouble in Europe. Said President Harrison, while yet in the Senate: “Vast tracts of our domain, not simply the public domain on the frontier, but in some of our newer States, are passing into the hands of wealthy foreigners. It seems that the land reforms in Ireland, and the movement in England in favor of the reduction of large estates and the distribution of the lands among persons who will cultivate them for their own use, are disturbing the{609} investments of some Englishmen, and that some of them are looking to this country for the acquisition of vast tracts of land which may be held by them and let out to tenants, out of the rents of which they may live abroad. This evil requires early attention, and that Congress should, by law, restrain the acquisition of such tracts of land by aliens. Our policy should be small farms, worked by the men who own them.” So says every thoughtful American.

We must give closer attention to the army of the unemployed if we wish to avoid the bad influence which discontent, of any class, has upon the prosperity of the community. The neglect of workers who have no work to do is a blot upon the fair fame of our people. Financially, we do not seem to be affected, one way or other, when a lot of men are thrown out of work. Says Mr. T. V. Powderly, long the most eloquent spokesman of the working class: “It matters not that the carpet-mills suspend three hundred hands, the price of carpeting remains unchanged. The gingham-mills and the cotton and woollen-mills may reduce the wages of employés five and ten per cent., but the price of gingham and calico continues as before.” But the men who suffer—they and their families—by partial or total loss of income, feel keenly the apathy of the general body of consumers, and their indignation and suspicion will be sure to make themselves known{610} unpleasantly when least expected. We are all working men; we owe practical sympathy to the least of our brethren.

We must make more of the individual, and unload fewer of our responsibilities upon the government, whether local, State or national. As editor Grady, of Georgia, said recently to the graduating class of the University of Virginia: “The man who kindles the fire on the hearthstone of an honest and righteous home burns the best incense to liberty. He does not love mankind less who loves his neighbor most. Exalt the citizen. As the State is the unit of government, he is the unit of the State. Teach him that his home is his castle, and his sovereignty rests beneath his hat. Make him self-respecting, self-reliant and responsible. Let him lean on the State for nothing that his own arm can do, and on the government for nothing that his State can do. Let him cultivate independence to the point of sacrifice, and learn that humble things with unbartered liberty are better than splendors bought with its price. Let him neither surrender his individuality to government nor merge it with the mob. Let him stand upright and fearless—a freeman born of freemen—sturdy in his own strength—dowering his family in the sweat of his brow—loving to his State—loyal to his Republic—earnest in his allegiance wherever it rests, but building his altar in the midst of{611} his household gods and shrining in his own heart the uttermost temple of its liberty.”

On all this, and the general subject of this book, the editor begs to quote, in conclusion, from a well-known and highly respected authority.

[A]

Por Castilla y por León
Nuevo Mundo halló Colón,
(Note etext transcriber.)

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
So hot discussious on this point=> So hot discussions on this point {pg 106}
succeeded in occuping New Mexico=> succeeded in occupying New Mexico {pg 121}
Champs Elysèes=> Champs Élysées {pg 165}
much to be regrettted=> much to be regretted {pg 169}
a sculpure equal to that of Greece=> a sculpture equal to that of Greece {pg 177}
it had magnifient grounds=> it had magnificent grounds {pg 205}
Danish West Indies, Ecuador=> Danish West Indies, Equador {pg 206}
explained in the words of of=> explained in the words of {pg 212}
His work is never done, any more than womans=> His work is never done, any more than woman’s {pg 273}
farmers hould receive=> farmers should receive {pg 283}
He wont be able=> He won’t be able {pg 336}
it is atonishing that=> it is astonishing that {pg 406}
exercise sover the national banking system=> exercises over the national banking system {pg 446}
let us sees after the uses=> let us see after the uses {pg 165}
the bitter enemity=> the bitter enmity {pg 471}
his own and only wife=> his one and only wife {pg 486}
Mr. Bancroft probable expended more money=> Mr. Bancroft probably expended more money {pg 536}
and has point to it=> and has a point to it {pg 560}

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Buildings.	Dimensions in feet.	Area in acres.	Cost.
Mines and Mining,	350x 700	5.6	$260,000
Manufactures and Liberal Arts,	787x 1687	30.5	1,000,000
Horticultural,	250x 1000	5.8	300,000
Electricity,	345x 700	5.5	375,000
Woman’s,	200x 400	1.8	120,000
Transportation,	250x 960	5.5	280,000
Administration,	260x 260	1.6	450,000
Fish and Fisheries,	163x 363	1.4	—200,000
Annexes (2),	135 diam.	.8	—200,000
Agriculture,	500x 800	9.2	540,000
Annex,	328x 500	3.8	—200,000
Assembly Hall, etc.	450x 500	5.2	—200,000
Machinery,	500x 800	9.8	—1,200,000
Annex,	490x 551	6.2	—1,200,000
Power Horse,	80x 600	1.1
Fine Arts,	320x 500	3.7	—500,000
Annexes (2),	120x 200	1.1	—500,000
Forestry,	200x 500	2.3	100,000
Saw Mill,	125x 300	.9	35,000
Dairy,	95x 200	.5	30,000
Live Stock (2),	53x 330	1.3	—150,000
“ Sheds,		40.0	—150,000
Casino,	175x 300	1.2	150,000
		144.8	$5,890,000

Grading, filling, etc.,	450,000
Landscape gardening,	323,490
Viaducts and bridges,	125,000
Piers,	70,000
Waterway Improvements,	225,000
Railways,	500,000
Steam plant,	800,000
Electricity,	1,500,000
Statuary on buildings,	100,000
Vases, lamps and posts,	50,000
Seating,	8,000
Water supply, sewerage, etc.,	600,000
Improvement of lake front,	200,000
World’s Congress auxiliary,	200,000
Construction department expenses,	520,000
Organization and administration,	3,308,563
Operating expenses,	1,550,000
	$16,420,053

SEALS OF THE THIRTEEN ORIGINAL STATES.
MARYLAND	MASSACHUSETTS	PENNSYLVANIA
DELAWARE	NEW HAMPSHIRE	NEW JERSEY
VIRGINIA	SOUTH CAROLINA	GEORGIA
NORTH CAROLINA	NEW YORK	RHODE ISLAND
	CONNECTICUT