Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

sian discipline is the discipline of Thor, the War God, against the discipline of the White Christ.

Pioneer democracy has had to learn lessons by experience: the lesson that government on principles of free democracy can accomplish many things which the men of the middle of the nineteenth century did not realize were even possible. They have had to sacrifice something of their passion for individual unrestraint; they have had to learn that the specially trained man, the man fitted for his calling by education and experience, whether in the field of science or of industry, has a place in government; that the rule of the people is effective and enduring only as it incorporates the trained specialist into the organization of that government, whether as umpire between contending interests or as the efficient instrument in the hands of democracy.

Organized democracy after the era of free land has learned that popular government to be successful must not only be legitimately the choice of the whole people; that the offices of that government must not only be open to all, but that in the fierce struggle of nations in the field of economic competition and in the field of war, the salvation and perpetuity of the republic depend upon recognition of the fact that specialization of the organs of the government, the choice of the fit and the capable for office, is quite as important as the extension of popular control. When we lost our free lands and our isolation from the Old World, we lost our immunity from the results of mistakes, of waste, of inefficiency, and of inexperience in our government.

But in the present day we are also learning another lesson which was better known to the pioneers than to their immediate successors. We are learning that the distinction arising from devotion to the interests of the commonwealth is a

higher distinction than mere success in economic competition. America is now awarding laurels to the men who sacrifice their triumphs in the rivalry of business in order to give their service to the cause of a liberty-loving nation, their wealth and their genius to the success of her ideals. That craving for distinction which once drew men to pile up wealth and exhibit power over the industrial processes of the nation, is now finding a new outlet in the craving for distinction that comes from service to the Union, in satisfaction in the use of great talent for the good of the republic.

And all over the nation, in voluntary organizations for aid to the government, is being shown the pioneer principle of association that was expressed in the "house raising." It is shown in the Red Cross, the Y. M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, the councils and boards of science, commerce, labor. agriculture; and in all the countless other types, from the association of women in their kitchen who carry out the recommendations of the Food Director and revive the plain living of the pioneer, to the Boy Scouts who are laying the foundations for a self-disciplined and virile generation worthy to follow the trail of the backwoodsmen. It is an inspiring prophecy of the revival of the old pioneer conception of the obligations and opportunities of neighborliness, broadening to a national and even to an international scope. The promise of what that wise and lamented philosopher, Josiah Royce called, "the beloved community." In the spirit of the pioneer's "house raising" lies the salvation of the Republic.

This then is the heritage of pioneer experience,- a passionate belief that a democracy was possible which should leave the individual a part to play in free society and not make -him a cog in a machine operated from above; which trusted in the common man, in his tolerance, his ability to adjust differences with good humor, and to work out an American

type from the contributions of all nations

a type for which

he would fight against those who challenged it in arms, and for which in time of war he would make sacrifices, even the temporary sacrifice of individual freedom and his life, lest that freedom be lost forever.

Evide

Absentee proprietors, 55, 297
Achievement, 309
Adams, Henry, 213

INDEX

Adams, J. Q., 26, 192, 230
Agriculture, 314, 329; Middle
West, 149, 150

Agriculture, Department of, 320
Alamance, 119, 120
Alaska, 296

Albany, 43, 52

Albany congress of 1754, 15
Algonquin Indians, 130
Aliens, land tenure by, 110
Alleghany Mountains, 9, 18, 67;
as barrier to be overcome, 195
Allen, Ethan, 54

Allen, W. V., 220
American Historical Assoc., 159
American history, social forces,
311; survey of recent, 311
American life, distinguishing fea-
ture, 2

American people, 339

American spirit, 306, 336, 337
"American System," 171, 172
Americanization, effective, 4
Arid lands, 9, 147, 219, 239, 245,
278

Aristocracy, 250, 254, 257, 275

Army posts, frontier, 16; proto-
types, 47
Asia, 296

Association, voluntary, 343, 344,
358

Astor's American Fur Co., 6, 143
Atlantic coast, as early frontier, 4;
Mississippi Valley and, 190, 191;

Northern, History, 295
Atlantic frontier, composition, 12
Atlantic states, 207, 208
Augusta, Ga., 98
Autocracy, 344

Back country, 68, 70; democracy
of, 248; New England, 75
Backwoods society, 212
Backwoodsmen, 163, 164
Bacon, Francis, 286

Bacon's Rebellion, 84, 247, 251, 301
Baltimore, trade, 108
Bancroft, George, 168
Bank, 171, 254, 325
Bedford, Pa., 5
Beecher, Lyman, 35
Bell, John, 192

Benton, T. H., 26, 35, 192, 325, 328
Berkshires, 60, 71, 77

Beverley, Robert, 85, 91; manor,

92

"Birch seal," 78
Black Hills, 145
Blackmar, F. W., 238
Blank patents, 95
Blood-feud, 253
Blount, William, 187
Blue Ridge, 90, 99
Boone, A. J., 19

Boone, Daniel, 18, 105, 124, 165,
206

Boston, trade, 108

Boutmy, E. G., 211

Braddock, Edward, 181, 324
Brattle, Thomas, 56

British and Middle West, 350

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »