CHAPTER II 

 THE HOME-BUILDING INSTINCT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE 



SPEAKING in broad terms, there have been three great 

 eras of colonization in the United States. All of these 

 eras have been well defined, intelligible, and eventful. 

 They peopled successively the Atlantic coast, the trans- 

 Alleghany region from Lakes to Gulf, and the valley of 

 the Mississippi. Taken together, they made virtually 

 complete the conquest of Eastern America, and in Eastern 

 America over ninety per cent, of the national population 

 dwells to-day. 



A study of these historic movements reveals a striking 

 fact. It is a fact which throws a flood of light on the 

 American character, explaining much that has occurred 

 in the past and furnishing secure ground upon which 

 to base predictions of much that is to happen in the 

 future. The American colonist, from Plymouth in 

 Massachusetts to Plymouth in Idaho, has fixed his eyes 

 on one star, which has shone out serene and steady 

 through the clouds of religious persecution, of war, and 

 of economic strife. That star stood for home. To build 

 a home for himself and his children, to live there at 

 peace with his neighbors and the world, to make better 

 institutions for average humanity this, when the sub- 

 ject is viewed as a whole, is seen to have been the con- 



