538 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE STKUGGLE FOR EQUALITY IS THE UNITED STATES 



By Peofbssob CHARLES F. EMERICK 



SMITH COLLEGE 



Introduction 



THE student of public affairs finds much in the course of nineteenth- 

 century development in which the friends of orderly progress 

 may well take heart. For one thing, the world underwent a great ad- 

 vance materially. In 1800, the appliances for producing wealth and the 

 modes of transportation did not differ greatly from those that had been 

 in vogue for hundreds of years. If the men of the fifteenth century 

 could have been brought back to life three centuries later, they would 

 have found the world in these respects substantially what it was 

 when they lived and died. The nineteenth century supplied the world 

 for the first time with the conditions of comfortable living. But it did 

 something more. It contributed greatly to the advance of knowledge 

 and to the diffusion of enlightenment. It witnessed a tremendous in- 

 crease in the spirit of humanitarianism and the sense of justice. More 

 of the material comforts of life, greater knowledge and enlightenment, 

 and a keener sense of brotherhood and justice have gone hand in hand. 

 The three have, for the most part, been in accord, but occasionally the 

 facts of the material situation have failed to conform to the demands 

 of the other two. It is the purpose of these pages to consider how two 

 or three of these conflicts have contributed to our progress as a nation, 

 and more particularly to discuss certain phases of the existing situation. 



The Declaration of Independence 



Equality and private property are the two things dear to the Ameri- 

 can heart. The influence of frontier conditions where one man socially 

 is as good as another and where every one is a potential, if not an actual, 

 owner of land, has stimulated a high regard for the former. On the 

 other hand, in addition to the need of property which civilized man 

 the world over experiences, the environment has been peculiarly favor- 

 able in arousing in nearly every one the desire to better his economic 

 condition. In the absence of titled rank, the acquisition of property has 

 been the chief stepping stone to political and social recognition. Be- 

 sides, immigration has added to our population large numbers in whom 

 the acquisitive instinct is exceptionally strong. The very richness of 

 the rewards open to men of energy and intelligence has given zest to the 

 economic struggle. It may well be, therefore, that the desire to get on 



