NATIONAL GROWTH AND NATIONAL CHARACTER 205 



The white-skinned man indeed leads the world today; but he 

 is not the only burden-bearer. In savagery the strong man leads 

 his fellows, while the weaker fall; in barbarism the strong man 

 leads his family, turning perchance in pity to the weakling; in 

 civilization the strong man supports subjects and feeds their 

 families, and reaches out in helpfulness toward other subjects; 

 but in enlightenment the strong man not only carries the weak 

 until cured or coaxed into strength, but seeks ever to lift to his 

 own plane the world's weaklings, whether white or yellow, red 

 or black. Civilization indeed makes noble subjects of Oriental 

 princes, but enlightenment makes leaders of nations in Indian 

 Juarez and half-Indian Diaz, and leaders of minds in African 

 Douglass and Booker Washington ; the dark-skinned man is no 

 less human than his lighter brother, and on the plane of highest 

 intelligence it is the self-taxed task of the white giant to lift 

 darker fellows to libert}''s plane rapidly as the duller eyes can 

 be trained to bear the stronger light. Nor is this the whole bur- 

 den ; for in enlightenment, much more than in civilization, it is 

 the duty of the strong man to subjugate lower nature, to extir- 

 pate the bad and cultivate the good among living things, to delve 

 in earth below and cleave the air above in search of fresh re- 

 sources, to transform the seas into paths for ships and pastures 

 for food-fishes, to yoke fire and lightning in chariots of subtly- 

 wrought adamant, to halter thin vapors and harness turbulent 

 waters unto servile subjection, and in all ways to enslave the 

 world for the support of humanity and the increase of human 

 intelligence. 



Of such are the tasks in which the strong exult and glory, 

 whether their skins be light or dark. 



Would that poesy's living fire and science's fined gold might 

 meet to gild the noble fane of all humanity; would that Par- 

 nassian light might shine on the whole long path of man's ad- 

 vance as it shines today on the kindliest step of kingly progress ; 

 would that the Strong Man of the ages might lodge in a thou- 

 sand million hearts, as the White Man of the century lives on a 

 hundred million tongues, through genius' touch ! For it is the 

 Strong Man of the races and eons who has borne the burden of 

 the world and made humanity. 



The American people, offspring of the strongest stock the world 

 has seen, gained early strength by exercise, and raised human 

 law to a new plane a century and a quarter ago; with half a 



