a Political Factor 63 



home or at the old trade. If ever there existed in the 

 world a community where the identity of interest, 

 of habit, of principle, and of ideals should be felt 

 as a living force, ours is the one. Speaking gener 

 ally, it really is felt to a degree quite unknown in 

 other countries of our size. There are, doubtless, 

 portions of Norway and Switzerland where the so 

 cial and political ideals, and their nearness to real 

 ization, are not materially different from those of 

 the most essentially American portions of our own 

 land; but this is not true of any European country 

 of considerable size. It is only in American com 

 munities that we see the farmer, the hired man, the 

 lawyer, and the merchant, and possibly even the offi 

 cer of the army or the navy, all kinsmen, and all 

 accepting their relations as perfectly natural and 

 simple. This is eminently healthy. This is just as 

 it should be in our Republic. It represents the ideal 

 toward which it would be a good thing to approxi 

 mate everywhere. In the great industrial centres, 

 with their highly complex, highly specialized con 

 ditions, it is of course merely an ideal. There are 

 parts even of our oldest States, as, for example, New 

 York, where this ideal is actually realized ; there are 

 other parts, particularly the great cities, where the 

 life is so wholly different that the attempt to live 

 up precisely to the country conditions would be arti 

 ficial and impossible. Nevertheless, the fact re- 



