Changing American Conditions At the very start we should recall that the early white settlers, while coming from a few closely related stocks of Europe, brought along a lot of prejudices and jealousies, so that many present social dividing lines are of foreign origin. Arrived here all faced the necessity of settling a wooded wilderness so far removed from Old World trade centers that frontier life involved many hardships. Contrasts based on local conditions soon appear. Stony New England led to a village life, to the town as the unit of government. The rugged coast line with many harbors, with its nearness to the fishing banks, and with abundance of water power, stimulated the development of fishing, of maritime industries, of manufacture and commerce. In the middle states, as in southeastern Pennsylvania, with richer and more level agricultural lands there soon appeared veritable garden spots tilled by the various German Anabaptist groups. The southern states with a climate rather enervating to the white man of northern Europe solved the problem by importing Negro slaves. Few of the Europeans of the day, or their American children, had any special antipathy to slavery as such, as is evidenced by the slave plantation conducted in the Barbados by an English missionary society. Even the Pennsylvania Quakers owned some slaves. Slavery, however, did not pay in the North, so soon died out. It did not pay in the mountain parts of the South and never really secured a foothold there. It did pay in the lowlands. By the end of the eighteenth century all the great Virginia leaders at the time of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 believed that slavery was nearing its end. But a combination of certain then underpopulated regions (South Carolina and Georgia) with certain northern maritime districts (Rhode Island and Connecticut) brought about the famous compromises with reference to the Negro in the Constitution. Then came the invention of the cotton gin by a Yankee tutor which made possible the growing of short-staple cotton on a commercial scale. The world got a new and valuable fiber for its clothing but slavery received a new lease of life. Soon adherents of the same religion began to draw from their one inspired Bible quite contrary teachings as to slavery, depending on their residence. The antislavery movement of the South died out with the development of northern abolitionism. The rivalry between the slave states and the free states began, the southern domination in national affairs was broken and finally there came the Civil War which marked the end of the era of a confederation of sovereign states and the beginning of the nation. Local Contrasts Slavery is but the most notable illustration of that conflict of local interests so common in our history. These clearly reveal the close connection between life conditions and our standards and ideals. As time went on the imported religious antagonisms were modified. Boston lost its fear of the "free-thinkers" of Rhode Island and a citizen of Providence might walk its streets unescorted. The Quakers lost their bad reputation and steadily rose in public esteem until the general verdict agreed with that of Trader Horn, "The Quakers, Ma'am, I've always held to be above par," while the title of old Thomas Underhill's book, Hell Broke Loose, or a History of the Quakers both Old and New, evokes an incredulous smile. Gradually the Philadelphia papers ceased to complain of the incoming Germans of whom they spoke at the middle of the eighteenth century in the very terms they used a century later with reference to the "Hunkies" of the coal regions. The Papists of Maryland worked out a modus vivendi with the Church of England folks. A spirit of tolerance arose and America was to be a place of refuge for all the socially or spiritually oppressed of Europe. The Alleghenies are crossed and the frontier is pushed further and further from the ocean. West, too, to the land beyond the Missouri where no white man can prosper, are sent the Indians. The Middle West begins to worry about the French control of the Mississippi, the only outlet for its grain. Jefferson nullifies, at least outsteps, the Constitution by making the Louisiana purchase and the size of the country is doubled. Expansion was overlooked by the Constitution makers. Westward push the sons of Virginia as well as New York. The Mississippi is crossed and the landhungry Germans, Swedes and Norwegians help in settling the prairies of the Northwest. The Conestoga wagons which carried the produce of Lancaster to the Philadelphia market reappear as "prairie schooners" en route to the semiarid plains, bearing the label "Kansas or Bust" on the way out, and only too often the legend "Kansas and Busted" on their return. By 1900 the Pacific coast is settled and what is perhaps the most important event in American history has occurred-the exhaustion of free land and the disappearance of the frontier. Long before the western trek had ended, certain changes were evident in the older sections. The influx of Middle West farm products was driving the agriculturist off the less productive eastern areas save where some special crop could be grown. But this slack in agriculture was more than made up by the development of industry. Soon industry needed more workers than could be supplied locally. The distance of free western land, the growing equalization of conditions in eastern America and western Europe, together with the improvement in transportation facilities, caused a cessation of immigration from earlier European centers and started a wave from eastern Europe where standards were lower. This newer group found its opportunity in the industrial centers of the East. Having good sense they settled where they could earn a living instead of going where later American moralists said they should have gone, into the already overdeveloped farming regions. City versus Farm Life The modern industrial city developed and the results were much the same whether its population was made up of rural Americans or rural Europeans. Concentration of population was the result of the use of power-driven machinery. But the gathering of hordes of human beings in small areas forced changes in methods and conditions of life. A mere list of these would fill a volume so we must be content with a few specimens; the contrast of the farm and city home may suffice. The farm family occupies a separate house, and in its care and in the care of the soil the diversity of work is so great and the amount so large that there is occupation for every member, young or old. About all the food, and at first much of the clothing and household supplies, are produced on the place. The water comes from the well, the milk from the cow. The air is pure, the nights are quiet. All neighbors are known for miles around. Cash is scarce as money is little used. The doctor, preacher and storekeeper are old friends. Coöperation in times of extra work is the rule. How different is the life of the city family! The house becomes the place where one sleeps, for industry has gone to the factory and with it the workers. The city life makes necessary common supplies of milk and water. Food is bought for daily needs. The bakery replaces the kitchen. The streets become the playgrounds for children. Incessant noise, day and night, fills the air. Smoke and dust pollute it. The neighbors are replaced by strangers to whom one seldom speaks even though the enforced intimacy of street car and subway turn all into human sardines. Everything is put on a cash basis. Evidently daily life must vary widely with such contrasts between city and country. The city makes possible the expansion of the fine arts, of the opera, theater and library. It calls to itself the most expert and best-trained professional men of all sorts. It turns night into day. Are these advantages or dangers? Wealth Beyond question modern industry has tremendously increased the production of wealth. This is true even in agriculture. It has taken work out of the house of the farmer as well as out of the city house. It has likewise produced some realignments in social matters which are far from simple. For instance, it has created a wide gap between the owners and managers of industry and the workers. The old farmer and his hired man associated and coöperated. Too often the wage-earner and the employer have been pitted against each other as if their interests were divergent. Industry has resembled warfare rather than coöperation. What share of the return from industry should go to labor? What bitter tirades one hears against selfish owners! On the other hand, who has heard of the wage-earners discussing what they ought to return to a losing industry? This is rare, is it not? Industry has created a social gulf as well, for now employer and laborer belong to almost wholly separated social groups, including often separate political parties. There are solutions, no doubt, to these labor questions. Their genesis is all that concerns us here. Industry With the factory has come a sharpening of the problems of poverty. Our forefathers boasted that beggars were un |