Americans 



Meed Outings 



"The New World": at a time of tremendous pressure and distress, that phrase rang 

 through Europe to lift the hearts of the defeated, restless, and dissatisfied. It aroused hope 

 of romantic adventure and of sudden riches in gold and furs. But those who came to settle 

 here found that pioneering must be paid for in sweat, blood, and strange diseases, in the 

 suffering of long, slow toil. 



They paid that price, and the heritage they leave us is rather bitter a rich land 

 racked and mismanaged, with huge accumulations of goods and wealth, yet with millions 

 of our people deprived and helpless. Today we again have a situation like that in Europe 

 300 or 400 years ago. In some ways I believe it is far more significant. We have millions of 

 people with good bodies and minds who cannot get jobs. They are just as good people as 

 those who left Europe for America 300 years ago. They are looking for another new world. 



Henry A. Wallace, New Frontiers, 1934. 



WHEN THIS LAND WAS NEW 7 and open for the taking, the amount of 

 work that had to be done barehanded or with the rudest of tools was 

 staggering. Need never drove harder than on the first English seeding- 

 ground of occupation. "He that will not work shall not eat," wrote Capt. 

 John Smith in that fearful "starving time" at Jamestown; and it is recorded 

 that toil remained a virtue of necessity during those first winters on Massa- 

 chusetts and Virginia shores. 



But something far more enduring than driving physical need entered 

 into the minds and hearts of these new American inhabitants. For here were 

 people seeking freedom, and this gave a spiritual lift and push to the march 

 of occupation, exalting it. Here vast wealth lay almost at the door of every 

 settler, wealth in the raw. The extent of it seemed endless. The race was to 



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