288 JOHN FOSTER FRASER 



abreast. Not quite confident where they are exactly, the 

 Americans make a bold shot and declare they are first. This, 

 indeed, is the perpetual song of the newspapers. In England 

 we constantly tell one another Great Britain is going to the 

 devil. Americans always tell one another America is the 

 leading nation on the face of the earth. An English manu- 

 facturer receives a big order and is not at all desirious other 

 firms in the same line should know it. When an American 

 manufacturer receives an order it is blared to the world, and 

 he is interviewed. The English manufacturer has ideas about 

 " reserve" and " dignity." The American sticks all his goods 

 in his shop window for the world to gape at. He is cocksure; 

 he is buoyant ; he is absolutely certain of success. So, breezily, 

 with slapdash rush, "joshing" — not being accurate in Ins 

 facts — he pushes ahead in a way that startles the Englishman. 



Therefore, in considering America at work there are these 

 important factors not to be lost sight of : that the American is 

 always enthusiastic ; that he is the son of a virile race, with a 

 quickness, an adroitness of intellect that is the result of mixed 

 breeding; and that the heads of firms are mostly men who 

 sprang from the people, are the makers of their own lives, and 

 know their business through and through. 



It is within the reach of every American to be a landed 

 proprietor for himself; at least, to own sufficient ground to 

 provide for himself and his family. It is this bottom fact 

 which accounts for high wages in the United States. Where 

 every man can work for himself, extra pay, compared with 

 what he could get in other countries, must be offered to in- 

 duce him to work for another man. Therefore wages are 

 much higher than in Great Britain. Wages, however, are 

 only comparable when you take into account their purchasing 

 power. To the rude immigrant, the Irishman, the Swede, 

 the German, the Hungarian, the Italian, the French Canadian, 

 American wages are phenomenal. To the British working- 

 man, however, the wage is only large as a figure. Wages 

 both in England and America are on the upward trend. But 

 while wages in America have, within the last ten years, in- 

 creased two per cent, the cost of living in the Eastern states has 

 increased 10 per cent, and westward, in a place like Chicago, 



