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Page 51
Now, my opinion is that the American people were never minding their own
business more good-humoredly and imperturbably than at the present
moment. They have been slowly and silently making up their minds, and
now they are beginning to express a deliberate judgment. What you take
to be the noise of demagogues, I consider to be the sober sense of a
great people which is just finding adequate expression.
You seem to be afraid of an impending revolution, and picture it as a
sort of French Revolution, a destructive overturn of all existing
institutions. But may not the revolution which we are passing through be
something different,--a great American revolution, which is being
carried through in the characteristic American fashion?
Walt Whitman expresses the great characteristic of American history:
"Here is what moves in magnificent masses careless of particulars."
It is this mass movement, slow at first, but swift and irresistible when
the mass has come to consciousness of its own tendency, which has always
confounded astute persons who have been interested only in particulars.
It is a movement like that of the Mississippi at flood-time. The great
river flows within its banks as long as it can. But the time comes when
the barriers are too frail to hold back the mighty waters. Then the
river makes, very quickly, a channel for itself. You cannot understand
what has happened till you take into account the magnitude of the river
itself.
Now, the successful man of affairs, who has been intent on the incidents
of the passing day, is often strangely oblivious of the mass movements.
You, for example, are disturbed by the unrest which is manifest, and you
look for some one whom you can blame for the disturbance. But perhaps no
one is to blame.
I think that what is happening may be traced to a sufficient cause. We
are approaching the end of one great era in American history and we are
preparing, as best we may, for a new era. The consciousness of the
magnitude of the change has come to us rather suddenly. One big job
which has absorbed the energies and stimulated the ambition of Americans
for three hundred years is practically finished. Some work still remains
to be done on it, but it no longer demands the highest ability. The end
is in sight.
This work has been the settlement of a vast territory, lying between the
Atlantic and Pacific, with a population of white men. It was a task so
big in itself that it fired the imagination and developed that peculiar
type of character which we call American. In its outlines the task was
so broad and simple that it could be comprehended by the most ordinary
intelligence. It was so inevitable that it impressed upon all those
engaged in it the belief in Manifest Destiny.
What has been treated by incompetent critics as mere boastfulness has
in reality been practical sagacity and foresight. Sam Slick was only
expressing a truth when he said, "The Yankees see further than most
folks." This was not because of any innate cleverness but because of
their advantage in position. Americans have had a more unobstructed view
of the future than had the people of the overcrowded Old World. The
settlers on the shores of the Atlantic had behind them a region which
belonged to them and their children. They soon became aware of the
riches of this hinterland and of its meaning for the future. This vast
region must be settled. Roads must be built over the mountains, the
forests must be felled, mines must be opened up, farms must be brought
under the plow, great cities must be built by the rivers and lakes,
there must be schools and churches and markets established where now the
tribes of Indians roam. The surplus millions of Europe must be
transported to this wilderness.
It was a big task and yet a simple one. The movement was as obvious as
that of Niagara--Niagara is wonderful but inevitable. A great deal of
water flowing over a great deal of rock, that is all there is of it. The
destiny of America was equally obvious from the beginning. Here was a
great deal of land which was destined to be inhabited by a great many
people. It didn't matter very much what kind of people they were so that
they were healthy and industrious. The greatness of the country was
assured if only there were enough of them.
From the very first the future greatness of the land was seen by
open-eyed explorers. They all were able to appreciate it. Captain John
Smith does not compare Virginia with Great Britain; he compares it to
the whole of Europe. After mentioning the natural resources of each
country, he declares that the new land had all these and more, and
needed only men to develop them. And Captain John Smith's forecast has
proved to be correct.
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