On this point we have but to read the testimony of
English writers themselves. It is not necessary to suppose that the
political economists were inhuman. They no doubt believed that if England
attained this commanding position, the accumulated wealth would raise all
classes into better conditions. Their mistake is that of all peoples who
have made money their first object. Looked at merely on the material
side, you would think that what a philanthropic statesman would desire,
who wished a vigorous, prosperous nation, would be a strong and virile
population, thrifty and industrious, and not mere slaves of mines and
mills, degenerating in their children, year by year, physically and
morally. But apparently they have gone upon the theory that it is money,
not man, that makes a state.
In the United States, under totally different conditions, and under an
economic theory that, whatever its defects on paper, has nevertheless
insisted more upon the worth of the individual man, we have had, all the
same, a distinctly material development. When foreign critics have
commented upon this, upon our superficiality, our commonplaceness, what
they are pleased to call the weary level of our mediocrity, upon the
raging unrest and race for fortune, and upon the tremendous pace of
American life, we have said that this is incident to a new country and
the necessity of controlling physical conditions, and of fitting our
heterogeneous population to their environment.
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