Various

“ The states with the highest ratio are generally those in the western part of the country. The west is a progressive country. But this is one path along which we would prefer to progress less rapidly. Let us not, in our mad rush for wealth, honor and pleasure, forget the religion of our fathers and the sacredness of the marriage bond. Remember that marriage is the foundation of the state and divorce is the torrent which is rushing madly forward in an ever-increasing effort to undermine it. ”

“ Miss Martineau pictures the American "exulting that he has caught the true aspect of things past and the depth of futurity which lies before him, wherein to create something so magnificent as the world has scarcely begun to dream of." "There is the strongest hope of a nation that is capable of being possessed with an idea," she adds, and she adjures the American people to "give perpetual and earnest heed to one point, to cherish their high democratic hope, their faith in man. The older they grow the more must they reverence the dreams of their youth." ”

“ But at the same time it is endangering the other pioneer ideal of creative and competitive individualism. Both were essential and constituted what was best in America's contribution to history and to progress. Both must be preserved if the nation would be true to its past, and would fulfill its highest destiny. It would be a grave misfortune if these people so rich in experience, in self confidence and aspiration, in creative genius, should turn to some Old World discipline of socialism or plutocracy, or despotic rule, whether by people or by dictator. ”

“ Looking down from an eminence not far from Philadelphia upon a wilderness which is now in the heart of that huge industrial society where population presses on the means of life, even the cold-blooded and cynical Tallyrand, gazing on those unpeopled hills and forests, kindled with the vision of coming clearings, the smiling farms and grazing herds that were to be, the populous towns that should be built, the newer and finer social organization that should there arise. ”

“ Capital began to consolidate in even greater masses, and increasingly attempted to reduce to system and control the processes of industrial development, but of the age of free competition, there came the greatest private fortunes and the most stupendous combination of economic interests in few hands that the world has ever seen. Labor with equal step organized its forces to destroy the old competitive system, it is not strange that the Western pioneers took alarm for their ideals of democracy as the outcome of the free struggle for the national resources became apparent. ”

“ Across the Pacific looms Asia, no longer a remote vision and a symbol of the unchanging, but borne as by mirage close to our shores and raising grave questions of the common destiny of the people of this Ocean. The dreams of Benton and of Seward of a regenerated Orient, when the long march of Westward civilization should complete its circle, seem almost to be in process of realization. The age of the Pacific Ocean begins, mysterious and unfathomable in its meaning for our own future. ”

“ What is needed is the multiplication of motives for ambition and the opening of new lines of achievement for the strongest. As we turn from the task of the first rough conquest of the continent there lies before us a whole wealth of unexploited resources in the realm of the spirit. Arts and letters, science and better social creation, loyalty and political service to the commonweal,—these and a thousand other directions of activity are open to the men, who formerly under the incentive of attaining distinction by amassing extraordinary wealth, saw success only in material display. ”

“ On the dullest faces of the steerage a new light falls as the American gateway is entered. We shall not comprehend the element that are shaping and are to shape our destiny, without due realization of the immigrant's dream.
With the passing of the frontier, Western social and political ideals took new form. ”

“ In a word, capital, labor, and the Western pioneer, all deserted the ideal of competitive individualism in order to organize their interests in more effective combinations. The disappearance of the frontier, the closing of the era which was marked by the influence of the West as a form of society, brings with it new problems of social adjustment, new demands for considering our past ideals and our present needs. ”

“ Like the Western pioneers they protested against monopolies and special privilege. But they also had a constructive policy, whereby society was to be kept democratic by free gifts of the public land, so that surplus labor might not bid against itself, but might find an outlet in the West. Thus to both the labor theorist and the practical pioneer, the existence of what seemed inexhaustible cheap land and unpossessed resources was the condition of democracy. In these years of the thirties and forties, Western democracy took on its distinctive form. ”

“ From the beginning of that long westward march of the American people America has never been the home of mere contented materialism. It has continuously sought new ways and dreamed of a perfected social type.
In the fifteenth century when men dealt with the New World which Columbus found, the ideal of discovery was dominant. Here was placed within the reach of men whose ideas had been bounded by the Atlantic, new realms to be explored. ”

“ Democracy and capitalistic development did not seem antagonistic.
Any survey of Western forces which have affected American ideals, would be sadly defective which failed to take account of the profound influence of immigration. Whether we consider the enthusiasts who came to find in the wilderness the freedom to institute their experiments in religion, or the masses who broke from their Old World habits and customs and turned to America as the land of promise, there is the same note of hope and aspiration. ”

“ Four hundred years ago, Balboa raised the flag of Spain at the edge of the sea of the West and we are now preparing to celebrate both that anniversary, and the piercing of the continent. New relations have been created between Spanish America and the United States and the world is watching the mediation of Argentina, Brazil and Chili between the contending forces of Mexico and the Union. Once more alien national interests lie threatening at our borders, but we no longer appeal to the Monroe Doctrine and send our armies of frontier men to settle our concerns off hand. ”

“ Ships of all nations found their way in increasing numbers across that bar which has ever been the chief drawback to navigation to and from the Columbia. Across the broad river down which the express boat propelled by the light-hearted, gaily-singing voyageurs, made its way in former times, the swift express train now travels with passengers who mayhap have crossed the continent in less time than would, in the early days, have been consumed in a trip from Spokane to Fort Vancouver. ”

“ The growth of absentee ownership of the soil is producing a serious problem in the farmer centers of the granger and the populist. Along the Old Northwest the Great Lakes are becoming a new Mediterranean Sea joining the realms of wheat and iron ore, at one end with the coal and furnaces of the forks of the Ohio, where the most intense and wide-reaching center of industrial energy exists. City life like that of the East, manufactures and accumulated capital, seem to be reproducing in the center of the Republic the tendencies already so plain on the Atlantic Coast. ”

“ If we take to heart this warning, we shall do well also to recount our historic ideals, to take stock of those purposes, and fundamental assumptions that have gone to make the American spirit and the meaning of America in world history. First of all, there was the ideal of discovery, the courageous determination to break new paths, indifference to the dogma that because an institution or a condition exists, it must remain. All American experience has gone to the making of the spirit of innovation ”

“ That old American advance of the wheat farmer from the Connecticut to the Mohawk, and the Genesee, from the great valley of Pennsylvania to the Ohio Valley and the prairies of the Middle West, is now by its own momentum and under the stimulus of Canadian homesteads and the high price of wheat, carried across the national border to the once lone and vast plains where the Hudson Bay dog trains crossed the desolate snows of the wild North Land. ”

“ After discussing the question of pedagogy and the child-study for the high school he goes on to say regarding the tendencies of teaching that "the increased emphasis upon [Pg 239] economic and social history is sound, for it broadens the view of the child, increases his understanding of the human kind, and gives him the substance for the forming of judgments. But when it comes to the shifting of emphasis, the pendulum begins to swing the other way. In ancient history I would push back the borders to the earliest dawn of civilization, broadening rather than contracting its limits. ”

“ Plowing, and like work, again, was for the Indian inexpressibly awkward and hard to learn, and, moreover, contrary to his ideas and to the ideas of his women of what a man ought to do. It was entirely natural that he should prefer to such drudgery, the sport of hunting and fishing and moving around. It was not his habit to stay in one place, for when the camass was ripe he needed to be near the grounds where it grew, and when the salmon were running it was necessary to be at the fisheries. Moreover, it was not sanitary for those Indians with their tepee habits to dwell long in one place ”

“ Here, where prospectors made new trails, and lived the wild free life of mountain men, here where the human spirit seemed likely to attain the largest measure of individual freedom, and where fortune beckoned to the common man, have come revolutions wrought by the demand for organized industry and capital. In the regions where the popular tribunal and the free competitive life flourished, we have seen law and order break down in the unmitigated collision of great aggregations of capital, with each other and with organized socialistic labor. ”

“ If one tries to imagine himself in the conditions that then existed in southern Idaho, he will, perhaps, better understand why even humane people could have had stern and cruel opinions with regard to the treatment of some classes of Indians. There was no danger of attack upon settlements of any size; there was, in fact, no declared war. But stock was constantly being stolen, lone men murdered, and pack trains attacked. If a few men pursued the Indians, the latter would turn and fight like fiends, and with the advantage of knowledge of the country. ”

“ The consumption of such a large amount of liquor in the past has, in a great many cases, absolutely destroyed the health of the Indians. Their constitutions always have been weak, subject to tuberculosis, pneumonia, and all pulmonary diseases, and when the consumption of large amounts of alcohol is added to this, little wonder is it that the death rate is high among them, and that so many weak, diseased Indian children come into the world. ”

“ The third influence was the slavery question which, becoming acute, shaped the American ideals and public discussion for nearly a generation. Viewed from one angle, this struggle involved the great question of national unity. From another it involved the question of the relations of labor and capital, democracy and aristocracy. It was not without significance that Abraham Lincoln became the very type of American pioneer democracy, the first adequate and elemental demonstration to the world that that democracy could produce a man who belonged to the ages. ”

“ Population is increasing faster than the food supply.
New farm lands no longer increase decade after decade in areas equal to those of European States. While the ratio of increase of improved land declines, the value of farm lands rise and the price of food leaps upward, reversing the old ratio between the two. The cry of scientific farming and the conservation of natural resources replaces the cry of rapid conquest of the wilderness. ”

“ In place of our attitude of contemptuous indifference to the legislation of such countries as Germany and England, even Western States like Wisconsin send commissions to study their systems of taxation, workingmen's insurance, old age pensions and a great variety of other remedies for social ills.
If we look about the periphery of the nation everywhere we see the indications that our world is changing. On the streets of Northeastern cities like New York and Boston, the faces which we meet are to a surprising extent those of Southeastern Europe. ”

“ They come in contact with the white children a great deal and so copy from them their games and amusements, and ultimately their ideals and ways of doing things. This is one of the most hopeful signs for the future of the race. If we can keep the Indian children interested in their school work and keep them in contact with the white children, assimilation will quickly be brought about. The closer the contact with the better class of whites, the sooner will the Indians reach our plane of civilization, and the easier will become assimilation and fusion. ”