domains with her material treasures and with the ennobling influence that the fierce love of freedom, the strength that came from hewing out a home, making a school and a church, and creating a higher future for his family, furnished to the pioneer. She gave to the world such types as the farmer Thomas Jefferson, with his Declaration of Independence, his statute for religious toleration, and his purchase of Louisiana. She gave us Andrew Jackson, that fierce Tennessee spirit who broke down the traditions of conservative rule, swept away the privacies and privileges of officialdom, and like a Gothic leader opened the temple of the nation to the populace. She gave us Abraham Lincoln, whose gaunt frontier form and gnarled, massive hand told of the conflict with the forest, whose grasp on the ax handle of the pioneer was no firmer than his grasp of the helm of the ship of state as it breasted the seas of civil war. She gave us the tragedy of the pioneer farmer as he marched daringly on to the conquest of the arid lands, and met his first defeat by forces too strong to be dealt with under the old conditions. She has furnished to this new democracy her stores of mineral wealth, that dwarf those of the Old World, and her provinces that in themselves are vaster and more productive than those of the nations of Europe. Out of her bounty has come a nation whose industrial competition alarms the Old World, and the masters of whose resources wield wealth and power vaster than the wealth and power of kings. Best of all, the West gave, not only to the Americans, but to the unhappy and oppressed of all lands, a vision of hope, an assurance that the world held a place where were to be found high faith in man and the will and power to furnish him the opportunity to grow to the full measure of his own capacity. Great and powerful as are the new sons of her loins, the Republic is greater than they. The paths of the pioneer have widened into broad highways. The forest clearing has expanded into affluent commonwealths. Let us see to it that the ideals of the pioneer in his log cabin shall enlarge into the spiritual life of a democracy where civic power shall dominate and utilize individual achievements for the common good.

156. THE STRENGTH OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY 1

1. The first is that of Stability. . . . The people are profoundly attached to the form which their national life has taken. The Federal Constitution is, to their eyes, an almost sacred thing, an Ark of the Covenant, whereon no man may lay rash hands. In the United States the discussion of political problems busies itself with details, so far as the native Americans are concerned, and has assumed that the main lines must remain as they are forever. This conservative spirit, jealously watchful even in small matters, sometimes prevents reforms, but it assures to the people an easy mind, and a trust in their future which they feel to be not only a present satisfaction but a reservoir of strength. . .

2. Feeling the law to be its own work, the people are disposed to obey the law. . . . It is the best result that can be ascribed to the direct participation of the people in their government that they have the love of the maker for his work, that every citizen looks upon a statute as a regulation made by himself for his own guidance no less than for that of others, every official as a person he has himself chosen, and whom it is therefore his interest, with no disparagement to his personal independence, to obey. . . .

3. There is a broad simplicity about the political ideas of the people, and a courageous consistency in carrying them out in practice. When they have accepted a principle, they do not shrink from applying it "right through," however disagreeable in particular cases some of the results may be. . . .

...

4. It is a great merit of American government that it relies very little on officials, and arms them with little power of arbitrary interference.

5. There are no struggles between privileged and unprivileged orders, not even that perpetual strife of rich and poor which is the oldest disease of civilized states. One must not pronounce broadly that there are no classes, for in parts of the country social distinctions have begun to grow up. But for political purposes classes

1 From James Bryce, The American Commonwealth, Vol. II, pages 474-486. The Macmillan Company, New York; 1891. Reprinted by special arrangement with the publishers.

scarcely exist.

The poor have already political power, equal civil rights, a career open to all citizens alike, not to speak of that gratuitous higher as well as elementary education which on their own economic principles the United States might have abstained from giving, but which political reasons have led them to provide with so unstinting a hand. Hence the poor have had nothing to fight for, no grounds for disliking the well-to-do, few complaints to make against them. The agitation of the last few years has been directed, not against the richer classes generally, but against incorporated companies and a few individual capitalists, who have not unfrequently abused the powers which the privilege of incorporation conferred upon them, or employed their wealth to procure legislation opposed to public interests. . .

...

6. The government of the Republic, limited and languid in ordinary times, is capable of developing immense vigor. It can pull itself together at moments of danger, can put forth unexpected efforts, can venture on stretches of authority transcending not only ordinary practice but even ordinary law. This is the result of the unity of the nation. A divided people is a weak people, even if it obeys a monarch; a united people is doubly strong when it is democratic, for then the force of each individual will swells the collective force of the government, encourages it, relieves it from internal embarrassments.

7. Democracy has not only taught the Americans how to use liberty without abusing it, and how to secure equality: it has also taught them fraternity. That word has gone out of fashion in the Old World, and no wonder, considering what was done in its name in 1793, considering also that it still figures in the program of assassins. Nevertheless, there is in the United States a sort of kindliness, a sense of human fellowship, a recognition of the duty of mutual help, owed by man to man, stronger than anywhere in the Old World and certainly stronger than in the upper or middle classes of England, France, or Germany. The natural impulse of every citizen in America is to respect every other citizen, and to feel that citizenship constitutes a certain ground of respect.

QUESTIONS

1. Why is the normal life of mankind democratic?

2. Show the weak and the strong points of majority rule. 3. What three principles does democracy imply?

4. What is democracy?

5. Why is it said that Christ was the first true democrat?

6. Has the trial of democracy in America proved successful?

7. Show how the West has contributed to American democracy.

8. In what ways is the United States conserving democratic institutions and ideals?

9. Upon what seven things is the strength of American democracy based?

INDEX

Briesen, Arthur von, 246

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 117

Accidents, 70-72; compensation for, Bryan, W. J., 299, 345

391