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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



own unenterprising towns ; many of which, 

 of fifty thousand inhabitants and more, 

 make no use of it. 



I suppose you recognize in these results 

 the great benefit of free institutions ? 



Ah, now comes one of the inconven- 

 iences of interviewing. I have been in the 

 country less than two months; have seen 

 but a relatively small part of it, and but 

 comparatively few people ; and yet you wish 

 from me a definite opinion on a difficult 

 question. 



Perhaps you will answer, subject to the 

 qualification that you are but giving your 

 first impressions ? 



Well, with that understanding, I may 

 reply that, though free institutions have 

 been partly the cause, I think they have 

 not been the chief cause. In the first place, 

 the American people have come into posses- 

 sion of an unparalleled fortune the mineral 

 wealth, and the vast tracts of virgin soil pro- 

 ducing abundantly with small cost of culture. 

 Manifestly that alone goes a long way to- 

 ward producing this enormous prosperity. 

 Then they have profited by inheriting all 

 the arts, appliances, methods, developed by 

 older societies, while leaving behind the ob- 

 structions existing in them. They have 

 been able to pick and choose from the prod- 

 ucts of all past experience; appropriating 

 the good and rejecting the bad. Then, be- 

 sides these favors of fortune, there are fac- 

 tors proper to themselves. I perceive in 

 American faces generally, a great amount of 

 determination a kind of " do or die " ex- 

 pression ; and this trait of character, joined 

 with a power of work exceeding that of 

 any other people, of course produces an un- 

 paralleled rapidity of progress. Once more, 

 there is the inventiveness, which, stimulated 

 by the need for economizing labor, has been 

 so wisely fostered. Among us in England, 

 there are many foolish people who, while 

 thinking that a man who toils with his 

 hands has an equitable claim to the product, 

 and, if he has special skill, may rightly have 

 the advantage of it, also hold that if a man 

 toils with his brain, perhaps for years, and, 

 uniting genius with perseverance, evolves 

 some valuable invention, the public may 

 rightly claim the benefit. The Americans 

 have been more far-seeing. The enormous 



museum of patents which I saw at Wash- 

 ington, is significant of the attention paid to 

 inventors' claims; and the nation profits 

 immensely from having, in this direction 

 (though not in all others), recognized prop- 

 erty in mental products. Beyond question, 

 in respect of mechanical appliances, the 

 Americans are ahead of all nations. If, 

 along with your material progress, there 

 went equal progress of a higher kind, there 

 would remain nothing to be wished. 



That is an ambiguous qualification. What 

 do you mean by it ? 



You will understand when I tell you 

 what I was thinking of the other day. 

 After pondering over what I have seen of 

 your vast manufacturing and trading estab- 

 lishments, the rush of traffic in your street- 

 cars and elevated railways, your gigantic 

 hotels and Fifth Avenue palaces, I was 

 suddenly reminded of the Italian republics 

 of the middle ages ; and recalled the fact 

 that, while there was growing up in them 

 great commercial activity, a development of 

 the arts which made them the envy of Eu- 

 rope, and a building of princely mansions 

 which continue to be the admiration of trav- 

 elers, their people were gradually losing their 

 freedom. 



Do you mean this as a suggestion that we 

 are doing the like ? 



It seems to me that you are. You re- 

 tain the forms of freedom, but, so far as 

 I can gather, there has been a consider- 

 able loss of the substance. It is true that 

 those who rule you do not do it by means 

 of retainers armed with swords ; but they do 

 it through regiments of men armed with 

 voting-papers, who obey the word of com- 

 mand as loyally as did the dependants of 

 the old feudal nobles, and who thus enable 

 their leaders to override the general will 

 and make the community submit to their 

 exactions as effectually as their prototypes 

 of old. It is doubtless true that each of 

 your citizens votes for the candidate he 

 chooses for this or that office, from Presi- 

 dent downward, but his hand is guided by a 

 power behind, which leaves him scarcely 

 any choice. " Use your political power as 

 we tell you, or else throw it away," is the 

 alternative offered to the citizen. The po- 

 litical machinery as it is now worked has 



