Class E. \ G S Book . ^19" GopightN" COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. The United States An Account of Past and contemporary Conditions and Progress Edited and Arranged by JOHN M. HALL Published by the BAY VIEW READING CLUB CENTRAL OFFICE. BOSTON BOULEVARD DETROIT, MICH. 1907 iUBRARY of OONi^f'fe.SS Two Copies Kece!-.?-' Copyrighted, 1907, BY JOHN M. HALL CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE Earliest Colonial History and Life 7 CHAPTER n Life and Customs in the Quaker and Puritan Colo- nies 21 CHAPTER HI Expansion of the United States Zl CHAPTER IV Changes of a Quarter Century 51 CHAPTER V America's Colonial Policy 65 CHAPTER VI Rise of Political Parties and Force of Public Opinion 74 CHAPTER VII Past and Future of the United States Supreme Court 85 CHAPTER VIII The Immigration Question 95 CHAPTER IX What Uncle Sam Is Doing — Forestry Preserving 110 CHAPTER X What Uncle Sam Is Doing — The New Agriculture.. 122 CHAPTER XI What Uncle Sam Is Doing — Road Building 136 CHAPTER Xll Is Public Ownership a Fallacy ? 147 CHAPTER XIII American Women 161 CHAPTER XIV Women's Clubs and Their Work 175 CHAPTER XV Journalism in America 186 CHAPTER XVI The American Pulpit 198 PREFACE THE student of some lands anticipates no particu- lar charm in their contemporary history and life, and, therefore, he fastens upon the long past as the time which offers the greatest instruction and pleas- ure. This is true of Spain and Greece, whose "dead past" is even more vital with power than the living present. They influence the world more by what they have done than by what they are now doing. There are other lands, hoary with age, whose early history has scarcely a page to arouse enthusiasm, but whose modern day is their brightest and best. Witness a notable illustration in Japan, whose emer- gence into the modern world and whose marvelous strides are all within the memory of living men and women of seventy years. There is still another class, whose beginning and their present equally move us by their wonderful rec- ord. In this class our own country is the most con- spicuous example in all the world to-day. It is like an oak in its prime, — still sound at the root^ strong in body, and beautiful in its spreading green top. Such a land has had a golden age in every decade; sometimes in the matchless Plymouth and other colony days, or in the Revolution, or the Civil War, or in the splendors of to-day. This little book traces some 6 PREFACE of the characteristics of the last golden age^ in many respects the most wonderful of all the decades of American history and effort. In preparing a course of study on our own coun- try for the members of the Bay View Reading Clubs and for the "solitaire" students, it was felt that it would have a serious defect if a study of contempo- rary life and times was omitted. And yet, so far as known, there is not a single book on the subject. This contemporary life of ours is not one broad, deep current, but a stream of many currents, each one of which has been especially studied by solitary investi- gators. No one mind could authoritatively enlighten others on all its activities, but it was realized that another^ with a comprehensive and orderly plan, could weave the work of others into a rich and useful fabric. And this is what has been done in this book. While the plan has its disadvantages, on the other hand it gives a work each of whose chapters is the contribution of a specialist. Acknowledgment is made of the generous consent of publishers to use the ma- terial, and at the end of each chapter is a key-letter which directs the reader to the last page of the book for the authorship and source of the chapter. License has been taken to correct some parts with the latest statistics and information ; also to eliminate unimpor- tant material in the interest of limitation of space ; and to do some slight editing in order to unite all the work in a smooth fabric. J. M. Hall. THE UNITED STATES CHAPTER I EARLIEST COLONIAL HISTORY AND LIFE A PROPER way to reach a comprehension of our progress and contemporary Hfe is to go back over the road by which we have come, and view the conditions that once existed. Only as we project the picture of the present on the background of the past can we appreciate our wonderful progress. My pri- mary object is to sketch life and customs, but these so often rest in history that I must recall some of the story of the colonial narrative. It was eighty years after the discoveries by the Cabots before Englishmen made any serious effort to establish homes in North America. And these efforts made successively, with Jamestown as a nucleus, could hardly be called serious, since the promoters had not so much in mind colonization as they had commercial motives. They sought a South Sea passage to the Indies ; they coveted gold and sil- ver mines such as those with which Mexico was en- riching the coffers of Spain ; they looked for a climate favorable for the manufacture of wine ; their rage for silk they would satisfy by cultivating the silkworm in 8 THE UNITED STATES Virginia. All these things they would force from a handful of miserable men, poorly housed under roofs of bark and weed, surrounded by savage foes^ and dying of starvation and fever in the malarial bogs of the James River. Twenty years after Raleigh's failures, the Vir- ginia Company was chartered under the laws of Eng- land, and in 1607 the first ship-load of emigrants landed at Jamestown. The orders were that the emi- grants, who were men without families, should live in community style, for five years the produce going into a common fund. Individual interests were thus merged in that of the commercial company to which Virginia had been granted^ and indolence and quar- reling resulted among the colonists. Failure of crops, or their destruction by the Indians, brought in its wake dire suffering, and added to this was the dan- ger of death by the Indian tomahawk or arrow, and the burning of their houses over their heads. George Percy, brother of the Earl of Northum- berland, writing of the hardships of the times, said: "There never were Englishmen left in any foreign country in such misery as we were in this new-dis- covered Virginia." A pint of worm-eaten barley or wheat was allowed for a day's ration. This was made into pottage and served out at the rate of one small ladleful at each meal. "Our drink was water, our lodgings castles in the air/' says Captain John Smith. "If there were any conscience in men," further adds Percy, "it would make their hearts bleed to hear the THE UxNITED STATES 9 pitiful murmur ings and outcries of our sick men, without relief every day and night for the space of about six weeks." Half of the colonists died, and those who lived were saved by the Indians who brought game, grain, and fruit in exchange for trin- kets possessed by the English. The legend of Captain John Smith and Pocahon- tas has proved to be only the fabrication of Smith's imaginative mind, suggested to him after Pocahontas married Rolfe and appeared in London as a foreign princess. Edward Eggleston, who wrote voluminously of the Virginia colonists, says of Captain Smith, that "his paradoxical character has been much misunder- stood. Those who discredit the historical accuracy of his narratives, consider his deeds of no value. On the other hand, those who appreciate Smith's serv- ices to the colony in its dire extremities, believe that the historical authority of such a man must be valid. But it does not matter greatly," the author adds, "whether the * strangely grimmed and disguised ' Indians seen by Smith at one place on the Potomac, who, according to the story, were shouting and yell- ing horribly, though in ambuscade, numbered three or four hundred, as in one account, or three or four thousand^ as in his -later story. To Captain Smith remains the credit of having been the one man in these first years — the man who wasted no time in a search for gold, but won from the Indians what was of infinitely greater value, — the corn needed to pre- serve the lives of the colonists. In mental and phys- 10 THE UNITED STATES ical hardihood, and in what may be called shiftiness, as well as in proneness to exaggeration and in boast- fulness^ he was in some sense a typical American pio- neer — a forerunner of the daring and ready-witted men who have subdued a savage continent." There were perilous times for the Virginia colony after the banishment to England of Captain John Smith by his enemies, Archer and Ratclifife. The crops failed, and the colonists resorted to the eating of horses, rats^ mice, adders, and even dead Indians, it is recorded. Finally Daniel Tucker — the ''Old Dan Tucker," afterward the tyrant of the Bermudas — be- thought himself to build a boat for fishing purposes. 'This," says Percy, "did keep us from killing one another to eat." But it is related that one man was driven to cannibalism by hunger and slew his wife. What he could not eat of her he salted. For his fiendish act he was burned to the stake. Time after time was the little colony almost de- populated, but was kept together by De la Warr, the cruel Sir Thomas Dale, and the unscrupulous Cap- tain Argall, until 1618, when, on the eighteenth of November, the Virginia Company, acting within the powers conferred upon it by its charter, granted the residents of Virginia a document styled a "Great Charter or Commissions of Privileges, Orders, and Lawes." No copy of this instrument was preserved, but some of its provisions are still extant. It estab- lished a legislative body, to consist of councilors of estate and representatives or burgesses chosen by the THE UNITED STATES 11 several ''plantations" or hundreds, and it limited the power of the governor. "This charter," says Eggles- ton, "was the starting-point of constitutional govern- ment in the New World. It contained in embryo the American system of an executive power lodged mainly in one person^ and a legislature of two houses. One might without much exaggeration call this paper a sort of Magna Charta of America, and it was a long and probably a deliberate step toward popular gov- ernment. If the results that have followed it be con- sidered, it can hardly be accounted second in impor- tance to any other state paper of the seventeenth cen- tury." It was in this same year, but before the charter was granted, that the colonists expressed their needs in this quaint phrase : "A plantation can never flour- ish till families be planted and the respects of Wives and Children fix the people on the soyle." In re- sponse to this sentiment, England sent over a ship freighted with home-makers, in which were ninety maidens. Mary Johnson uses this episode as a basis for one of her most charming novels, "To Have and to Hold." The colonists had to defray the expense of the transportation of this cargo in the high-priced tobacco of the time. The planter had to pay for his wife, and even then could not have her without her consent, and so the monotony of existence was varied with energetic courting scenes. For thirteen years this custom of sending over wives continued. In 1732 two young women were sent back to England 12 THE UNITED STATES because of scandalous conduct on the voyage across. They were told that only good^ pure women were fit to become the mothers of Virginians. ''When there were house-mothers in the cabins, and children born in the country," says Eggleston, "the settlers no longer dreamed of returning to Eng- land ; and there w^as soon a young generation that knew no other skies than those that spanned the rivers, fields, and vast primeval forests of their na- tive Virginia, which now for the first time became a home." Prosperous times followed for the Virginians. The profits from the sale of tobacco were large, and they lived in that riotous profusion that sometimes characterizes men emerging from the hardships and perils of pioneer times into unstinted wealth. The gambling spirit was upon them, and gold changed hands faster than it could be counted, and every gen- tleman, winner or loser, arose from the table at dawn, his smile and his courtesy as undimmed as the sparkle on the freshly opened champagne. Even the clergy participated in the reckless life of the people. The most inefiicient clergymen were the ones who could be most easily persuaded to leave England and ac- cept the hardships of the wilderness. In some in- stances men who had been deposed by the Church in England found livings in Virginia. These men, as a class, not only lacked zeal and spirituality, but many of them were addicted to open vice. Horse-racing, gambling, and drunken revels were among their sins. THE UNITED STATES 13 It is recorded that one of them was president of a jockey club for many years. They encouraged among the people the custom of celebrating the sacrament of baptism with festivities and dancing, in which the clergy took part. One clergyman is said to have called out to his church warden during communion, ''Here, George, this bread is not fit for a dog to eat ! " Another fought a duel in a graveyard; and still an- other thrashed his vestry and the next Sunday preached from the text : "And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them and plucked off their hair." A writer on this subject says that no doubt the vestry got what was coming to them, as the vestry in those days exercised too much authority. For all this and much more a slur has ever been cast on Virginians. And yet it has been well said by Sydney George Fisher that *'the common- wealth which could produce Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, the Lees, the Randolphs, the Carters, the Harrisons, and a host of other eminent men, which was called the Mother of Presidents, and which exercised such a control- ling influence in the Revolution and the formation of the Constitution, must have been a remarkable community ; for such distinguished men are the re- sult of conditions in which they live, and can not spring up by accident or of their own will." During the spring and summer months of the present year (1907) many visitors to the Jamestown 14 THE UNITED STATES Exposition made their way up the path toward the rustic entrance to the tree-shaded enclosure within which is a broken, soHtary and ivy-mantled church tower, half hidden by its grove of sheltering trees. As they stood beside the almost obliterated remains of the colonial powder magazine, they looked about to find nothing remaining save the ivy-covered tower of the old church and the crumbling gravestones. The grass-grown remainder of the mightiest of mod- ern wars is heaped up over what were the streets and highways of the old village. The unstayed river, relentless as time itself, has foot by foot eaten away the actual site of much of old Jamestown, where Smith and De la Warr labored, where Pocahontas lived and flourished, where Berkeley ruled with des- potic sway, and where Bacon, backing his words with his deeds, made the first successful armed protest against kingly tyranny in the name of the people. And yet, here was once the most prosperous and important town in the colonies. In spite of jealousy, neglect, and privation, the colony planted on this is- land (then a peninsula), in 1607, flourished and grew, until its one hundred and fifty colonists increased to fifteen thousand in 1647^ and the palisaded village of fifty houses, as it was in Pocahontas' time, grew into the colonial metropolis of Berkeley's day, with its capitol and its court-house and its governor's mansion^ its taverns and shops and traders, its streets and highways and ocean piers, now all vanished ut- terly, save the old tower and the walls of the thrice- THE UNITED STATES 15 burnt house in the fields, known as the Carey place. There once lived Washington's earliest love, and there, too, it is also claimed, stood Governor Berkeley's mansion in the days of his stormy supremacy. As one looks across the ever-widening creek, where once stretched a neck of land, one can imagine a strange procession: John Smith and his soldiers marching into the wilderness ; Pocahontas bearing relief or warning to the colonists ; and Bacon and his patriots entering the captured capital. Explorer and colo- nist, trader and priest, governor and councilor, landed proprietor and negro slave, sailors, soldiers, Indian ally or red-skinned foeman, stately ladies on horseback or in lumbering coaches, bondmaid and goodwife — all the life and all the display were seen in old Jamestown, as the seat of colonial government for over ninety years, until Governor Nicholson, in 1698, removed the capital to Williamsburg and took from Jamestown all its prestige and power. Soon after the establishment of the colony at Jamestown the Dutch under the leadership of Hud- son settled the country known for years as New Netherlands, afterward New York State. During the first forty years of its existence the great city which we now call New York was a Dutch settlement known as New Amsterdam. The Dutch had no political or colonizing propensities, and established themselves at first for the mere purpose of collecting furs from the Indians. New Amsterdam was well located for the Dutch traders, being near Long Is- 16 THE UNITED STATES land, the mint of the Indians, where wampum was manufactured out of shells. The Dutch could pur- chase the wampum cheap and use it to buy furs from the northern tribes. None of the nations that sought homes in the New World were as cruel to the Indians as were the Dutch. At one time when Kieft was governor of the colony, a company of eighty men fell upon the un- suspecting Indians at Pavona and murdered men, women, and children in cold blood. From midnight until morning they shot and slashed, threw children into the water and drove mothers in after them, while the screams were heard across the bay at Fort Am- sterdam, Shortly afterward another party of Indians was surprised and forty of them killed. The sol- diers returned to Kieft in the morning with the heads and prisoners, and he welcomed them by shaking their bloody hands. The women of the colony, too, became aroused to brutality, and, in imitation of the savages, heaped indignities upon the dripping heads. Not content with this slaughter, the Dutchmen made a raid on the Long Island Indians who had always been their friends, and robbed them of their corn. Within a few months the Indians commenced to square accounts with the Dutch. Hiding in the swamps and thickets, they began their stealthy, sav- age tactics against which the Dutchmen were pow- erless. The farmer and his cattle were shot down, grain and hay crops were set on fire, and the women and children whose lives were spared were taken into THE UNITED STATES 17 captivity. In his extremity Kieft sent to the Puri- tans for aid, but received the answer that the Eng- Hsh beHeved the Indians were justified in their war- fare. Sydney George Fisher says it is not unHkely that many a Puritan prayed to his terrible God not to deUver the Swanennekens (the name the Indians gave the Dutch) from the hand of the heathen, but to sweep them off the continent that the saints might inherit the earth. The war continued five years, only ending when the remnant of the Dutch joined forces with the Puritans. The Dutch were skilful gardeners, and in New Amsterdam they soon had beautiful gardens surround- ing their houses, both of vegetables and flowers. Many of them were imported from Holland, but be- side these they brought into cultivation many of the native wild flowers. They also had flocks of geese, ducks, and chickens. The Dutch vrouws and their goodmen slept on beds filled with feathers plucked from their own geese, and for covering put over themselves another feather bed. They had quanti- ties of clothes, and seem to have thought the climate cold, for the women are pictured as wearing innu- merable petticoats and the men several pairs of trou- sers, one over the other; and in church in winter the men used muffs. They had linen in great quantity, both for wear and for the bed and table. Some families had five or six hundred dollars worth ; and it is recordea that one man had eighty muslin sheets^ twenty-three linen m&^ sdd il:l bsvsibd rlsil ^ve&b'>lh^thsdirmsi Q^Jly^rra^cdafiyb^ggS Imhgatgii^oftl step :3asd"7e(r€Svejr?9i3itm^/igwssi^lig .^hste sbftfe igc^dii-t fif^noBrhoke4 Hc^i/Pptd:^ Bydue^^rrS-ecQi^ rtFfMie?,ntfell& us that their love of gossip, combiimd^M^fJtS th^Jr i^to sMV^ness j . kept ^tfeesjkri^sito's^s with vsurh3j(^ dslScier . D saidi-tlm^vhisowiBg^clAflfffitefJ lif^H |?ai p^'ti^oit&)rtGBoHg!kc>itMps:ro4fKce57Moiise:'rIE^dev^e!ls e§ij tto'^Efemi5ad^:^^Fridtiftg11!t9^f sfefeix^^^a^ ¥©fI^eKati:)^©Ii0 ?Jtft%riIoirb bn£ ,e>l3r;b ba^lojjlq 2i3fi:tfi93: rUiv/ bsllii gbsd no iqsia namboo;^^ •13Y0 toitN^^i^^g'^Qtpn^ ^"?3^^ Mo ihdi moil .Makes me; other than 1 am. , , , -ilrtBUp %lal^;3^5?i sr)e2rferi?4|f^S MlM^ei^ar^^^rnDflt slBmib sife) Jd[^J(hi^^d:^^'^iU'eJdnyiaf. ^^ ^asrl+ob io ■^5h -unn't ■gnhc'^Yi ^£ bstnlDiq 3"i£ narnow sriJ lolt ^bloo -noWlte Butohi£-faTeaer®rrli^ii Hins bi5Qoi$ldqdl$Fd^rh hiiiisEsr^niwitibi sbTalHowiiiidjoiKs; -fflrSoAgd^ -itogercelteie^ where they stored great supplies ofe¥k£@efe^es nto Td3fi^niiisQ*.\aaad';h-0gsbfadEsiiJ;§ saltadnbefe^rlp^DHXand fislz; 'hlih&y aGQokdd ?«did2 theldkfcfibjKds^dwHiclaohterje kKg6.-ind fextendei jfabrnin,tdtTliii0 aiBifnb bKitorfeayg kasMkiothelJE^cthv'WEc&mDtraislihea.vyi c|rlnkew$ ::«tsi l^^r Ikigljsfc.rbnti whgnr;jwfe |-ead: abotit whit thd^:d€]aiilt9 ^fifijate'^lx^MQirideri vWhat:G^o-w>it^j0,ift (t^§|rI©t,rfkim4j£rP§|jin^ comes, the g^overnor. in a lone robe ;^besi4e him onrthe^ right nana comes me preacher with his cloak on, and 0Ti--'¥l$e3l^fY kgfidi^M3^apMi4l2^^f^^^lii-^Ilgt46^ k^m^ ^A^ clo# ^^, M§ls-? §?8^}1 mm .Wfi^krjliai^i^ a;iyd j^n^lm^ march in good order, and each sets^his arrns down 5f tiifif '^' ^^^ .DnEl'glki v/3^^ to zioiB, nea mi-miiS; 3d:r isvo ^loot ^srit nsdv/ ,IQdI m hnsauodJ The Plymouth colony had to be thus careful, \XK its defense Qn accovuit of .its small . numbers ana its dangers ironi the liidians. Sydney George f^ isher grapiiicalry d^escnbes trieif isolation ~^ wen lie' says . a^'^5f-^t I'FM^Anf^t^i^ift^ ^i^h^^ffiiS^M? att^Sgfei Cl^le^^^ '^ Vft-^fiflatf^^f^ib^^ogfelpftiisrkt bMi ^oytbatis janM^^Z-^oAi tai^-^^iOfefe-^lal^riTTh^n^^an^ isn^iiw t6i-'§^fe4'i5u|2§{fti ^tupy/^lie kroan^ino'EbepIkiad di^ iteKittfitnidcM^itogBlheaBiimfjQieiD ^^adfe^rwkitt it$9^©f^ lB;;0 adi xo r:oij;;aea-i^q snolfinthesr^as^- jdaysflctlii^Tesillla^nbejei n6i:\r^^h.jr. tfch ,g^ii!V-Qr^an-e^i:iand luxur.iQ^SvJfdrk'iturd^rniiidiitheiT s'&S'fe 'MMnjivtdTthe.. severe M£a^/Aoyo(l)rui2^tandlmlbh sfl'^ckp ofeT^r^:^ wets yfm^d,iaDr:t2aft^\sji*efrfniitiisikmaat fmmd 'ia# t^riihifri. ril^ebmhM smkntx^v^ ,iwds-!tia elitii-chgOftig'p^DpMt .I'ipeyi^qvetire-'jflaiid^ dcessMj^^ the W^i§mt^&d rhi^cmbsk^tim/ the^piiitlpfifiibyjMiiipandritM fe(>h^fbgs^fll y^di i¥medfiaiidrjpralyjeirfullfi xEh^ps^jart ttiAit^P p^^e*ftedC'% ifchei^^mtding qis.t]m ^hticdjcibl- ony in one place was a temptation to the IndffllHk/ta'nd ^ligT]bft9e^o£'tPafg6di^4igdofiifeae theiimioiiiisip scrMTef ul te^^^n^tbe-'defkisj^rti Th^:r«kinldispdilidi?tiib ^hcis 'da5^-^i^''^^J|]fte^tjteg.^h©dse>^3tlleflmihi^r/iIoMinva fe^^nteft ki tMeI^"ei-*g3@fliJtet^h^iTki asonHi-i^hcerdrdrE tks fe«$rnJft^y/ Sdttietitn^fii$i-i^ot£i"d)vpreBaidflIj©nbtrhe some tl^ '''SiCrid^ toir n^iitedkyi t^Mtil vh® rhcsi ^hahstiejirli^. -Aftd-Jth^^iM^figte-fololaMt eKhkji^ ah^itlhiiig:/ i^ wasv-i^^, ■^ki"^§>'Ae 't^ufejfeii^^ifebegj^fl boO b j£dV/'' .bsmiBb io rp^^fn^ tl]fev/ngWf-4tifl{ieflGe§-tlMr#-%^§'i% t^HSnge iTh^ gbvepnof Hi^ove in his great coa<2h-draj#ri by- six ^llBrses decked in resplendent harness, withj hi& MV- aei^ie^/'iar^tYrtsilin .atteildance. Other weatthype^^^ ■^^^ c56a5be^:'\^lh"^o!nr horses i and they wiatkfed?the .Str^et^ k their c(5cked hat^, and y^HoW^ red, Muev^r ^gredn f^ waistcoats. Their houses wer^ large Utid ifilledc%itH -satet-Wstfe,? iiftetf, t"Ghliia,nif v^^M^i^ e'tfil Ifapfestry. '-^ They-indlft^^ iii riding^ hunting, 'fi^hittg, f&nd skating^. ■ The "^e'ighi-^rides ■ended in dancing' aM ■^a4^d-playing p^t^is, qgfjid stiiey di^w • the lirie dt'tot one amusement, theatergoing. '\luo -, : .Forf.Mao^; years "-cormsiutiiieation with otherot^wns ^was.jby ineans. of ithe. pfostrthor&^s/ and raiTphfiof ji®- 4i^je'^ tenlejied: iarrQie tsafilfcaBifk£[ foo^fiitoillfe inside his trip once a month, arid iiie'sui^m^' biicC' in 'three .weeks. No oae irt.the villag^e was so hig-h and mio^htv ^tJii^t:g^.Wrf>ul4; uf^ fi^^|^.4^.;|rje^t 4|n^^m^i} earr|er,.,ajnd fpb^.hiim with: que^i6ns.cabotitlBQStoiii.,atidi'Mm«5jYm^^ Wd the tteiiIog!^&^ri'ithfen^dds^?::#o?^Keg^ ^litirctesl ^rffle %realtmr fei^he^ice! ^^^^cKHs^^ :iiig bowl. It, pni^p^. : bfi tf u)y ^ recqrqed .^Jj many, ra ■chrisOm^chiidqq v'Pisd '©cf: teing: baptizedi'^b One^crtugl parson, she tells us, believed in infant immer^ibt?. ^^ 28 THE UNITED STATES The fireplace in colonial homes was an item of much importance. Governor Eaton had nineteen of them in his house,, and Parson Davenport thirteen, and yet they could not keep warm. It was always a case of roasting one's face and freezing one's back. Fierce, icy blasts blew down the great chimneys, and Cotton Mather noted in his journal on a Janu- ary Sabbath, in 1697, that as he shivered before *'a great fire, that the juices forced out at the end of short billets of wood by the heat of the flames on which they lay, yett froze into ice on their coming out." No more interesting description of the New Eng- land fireplace can be found than that given us by Mrs. Alice Morse Earle in her ''Customs and Fash- ions in Old New England " : "Around the great, glowing fireplace in an old New England kitchen centered all of the homeliness and comfort that could be found in a New England home. The very aspect of the domestic hearth was picturesque and must have been a beneficent influ- ence. In earlier days the great lug-pole, or as it was called in England, the backbar, stretched from ledge to ledge, or lug to lug, high up the yawning chim- ney, and held a motley collection of pothooks and trammels, of gib-crokes, twicrokes, and hakes, which in turn suspended at various heights over the fire, pots, kettles, and other cooking utensils. In the hearth corners were displayed skillets and trivets, peels and slices, and on either side were chimney-seats and set- tles. Above, on the clavel-piece, were festooned strings of dried apples, pumpkins, peppers, and ears of corn." THE UNITED STATES 29 Mrs. Earle tells us that the lug-pole often became brittle or charred and let its weight of precious cook- ing utensils into the fire, and the Puritans were glad to adopt a Yankee invention known as a crane^ made of iron. And so we have Longfellow's poem, *'Tlie Hanging of the Crane." Besides the cooking uten- sils there were the andirons, the tongs, the long, brass- handled shovel,- and the bellows. All these things we prize now as heirlooms, but do we ever think of the discomfort and inconvenience they symbolize of early colonial days? When we think of the fireplace, we think of the spinning-wheel too. All the yarn was spun in the homes, and in some homes the weaving was done, too. Early colonial days are known as the age of the homespun. From the hardships and difficulties that attended courting in colonial times, it would seem that not all the world loved a lover. The family always kept an eye on the lovers. Their courting was done in the living-room in the presence of father, mother, brother, and sister. For their convenience a hollow tube, called a whispering rod, was placed in their hands, and through this they poured all their billing and cooing. The magistrate seemed to think young men needed protection against the wiles of the fair sex. In 1660, it is recorded that Jacob Muiline went into the room with Sarah Tuttle, and, seizing her hands, kissed her. The court asked Sarah if Jacob had "in- veigled her affections," and she answered spiritedly, b£l^@toYnieds"hjsS wd^ Inisde&wefrlJaoM^teddiag^'ii'ltoe l>kfi^i ha^e,5j^fi4o"^^§ W^ mm^^}pmi ^jMmn^ME JS^ii^e^^^- -They .were man in the township to kill six blackbirds, or three crows whilahe remained single. As a penalty for not ,-i3fno-id ,-iafljbrn .ioi.mi lo z^:d: ■ / / • - -ni doinsf it, he should not be married until he obeyed the ^scfnr v/oiiOii £ SDnsinsvnoo 71^11^ ..^ .. .■.^:>o.o ^n£ ,gDfmfI :tr9fl:r ni baofilq .ZBW ^boi ^iisQi^inw X:> dsIIbd Puritan rnmisters did not penorrn'tne ceremony 01 marriage, this duty faUirtg to the lot 61 the mag- istratS. Governor Bellingham mtrriea, nimg^Tf 10 WA teS^^^^i^a*^^ - t.id-^ffd' hik brid6 ^ btit tWenfy^ 'fe^^ W!\eS"!f^%&-^'b^bi^fit^\5J^2f^i:^fgiofft iavit^!i^^^liJferf W^ete^hg^^8ri ^f beM k^^ ^^l.i)^g|si^t/ .-ill jQiili^gn^i^ wotoaiip a'-jserYkHt^.-sammiiS^h BinrJYQ-S, btij^(hri£^QMn%.;'&rifmerfod) JohB7Qj8 srIT -no/'.Mi^ dn7]ymt|iQ!St\\j&altk/iiI,-3asi2t:3n%i8tm^ pf@Mri$icei^jfi5G m^ifibsaidlwil©:/,' ansibnl atlT .£in£V --i9rtod.,^6ynMe$ef J^aJly imiii3ckdidab ^tenbfc^ij^im sfelMfi§d l:o n^rri ,^ 8By/ nnoS^ loi ,cbnoi cIjo^'P'adi en oisv^ o:t H^dFjiP^aKiami hweai Qtiis^nli/wer.^.eyi^nrfeltrar^ief tfe&^3iid^:"frt^da^e,imMD^s- Ntrtbiirfg was fiE^ad^mift wM ai}5^gg^QaQnrpteaichjedi0!rr.!paa>liii!:saiig. eTThci-fieigfe bQC)5c©aei|otQ^h0rrb3f)rfheotoMiiigtlt)fathecfe©lJ andvsalg etB^l^jstkestk^ :.%sfe/'ca3rrWLt0^ hififcg^al^e, hisbfiiend^ standing by while he was buried. FunecaL^ipoekii &id di^.gies/ were' wititteh and ptibidshed, andiia-J^rthfefoAx^ke, sdcnethitig aefter theinaturerof the p'cesentiliifisib'jwcikeg hisff ri^idi thougM oi/all theg'ojod'thingisitheyt cbu|di6a[y agouti himv AriimSitatiQ^l;t^i^t^hJeillneral'JGa^)qe iri'tke form qfeia}pai;";0fT^O3msi;ari4 ^alvfttHesrairnring'..' oFkej gfeVes mi^ht.-fea 'Black icir'^whitqoaiiydrihe rnsgs ^ter^ edgraved svrifbh^moliosiy" ^uxrh//as,"]oDeaIth' parts 2.«aitedf:iheaWs-i 'i^Rcejislire /f(M!tdfia%f" rfgPi-^^^^'' berl£rIcfQ^low^, 1833, by Benjamin H. Day, an intelligent working man, and a job printer by occupation. It started with a cir- culation of three hundred. Its first issue contained twelve columns of matter, each column ten inches long. It was filled with bits of local interest and with advertisements of "Help Wanted." But this made it popular with the masses in search of employment. The first large increase of the visible radiance of the Sun was derived from the lively imagination of its editor, Richard Adams Locke, who published an ar- ticle purporting to describe discoveries made by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope. Sir John was then at the Cape, and had set up a new telescope there. The story ran that the telescope had revealed everything on the surface of the moon, and had dis- covered inhabitants, houses, soil, crops, animals, and modes of living. Every one believed it at first and every one bought the Sun to read about it. The New York Herald finally exposed the hoax, but the reputation of the Sun was made^ and Mr. Day intro- duced steam power into his office in order to keep up the demand. The Sun was the pioneer in this mechanical improvement as well as in the publication of such gigantic ''fakes." Bennett had discovered that a paper which is usually denounced will be universally read. He had 188 THE UNITED STATES perceived that a democratic revival demanded a demo-^ cratic press, and his tough Scotch fiber was elastic enough to endure either pull or pressure. He deter- mined to make a paper that should be the master of politicians, not the tool. To that purpose, despite all his frivolities and sinuosities, he clung with the te- nacity of a Scotchman and the effrontery of a French- man. Moreover, Bennett possessed, in a high degree, the ability which is at once the pride and bane of two-thirds of our so-called successful journalists to- day — the ability to write crisply, interestingly, and omnisciently about everything, including the things of which he knew nothing. Out of the cellar at No. 20 Wall Street, came the first copy of the Daily Her- ald, May 6, 1835, a little four-page penny paper, with four columns to a page. Bennett literally fulfilled his editorial promise to ''give a picture of the world." He first, in 1835^ went on 'Change, note-book in hand, and wrote daily descriptions and reports of the stock markets. He first seized upon the opening of steam communication with Europe to organize upon that continent a bureau of foreign correspondence. He first, in 1838^ adopted the practice of reporting the proceedings of courts of law when cases of public interest were on the docket. Mr. Bennett's news- paper was quite emancipated also from accepted standards of conventionality, one might almost say of ethics. He knew better than any of his rivals the value of wholesale advertising, and his cold-blooded manner of translating notoriety into dollars and cents THE UNITED STATES 189 shocked the chivalrous soul of James Watson Webb. According to Webb's catechism, gentlemen whose es- timates were too sharply criticized, or whose motives were impugned, could discover a healing balm only in an invitation to shed blood. Bennett laughed at such conduct and laughed also at such provocations. Every attack upon him was daily chronicled in the Herald and made a fresh means for exalting the horn of the newspaper for extending its circulation. Ben- nett was assaulted on the street and in his office by those whom he censured and lampooned. Infernal machines were sent to blow him into atoms. Ben- nett answered with blows of ridicule, and the public laughed with him and swelled the revenues of the Herald still more. In connection with the Philadelphia Ledger and the Baltimore Sun, the New York Herald established the famous pony express from Mobile to Montgomery during the Mexican War, by which all the details of that war appeared in those journals before they were received by the authorities at Washington. This exploit destroyed all there was left of the Holy Alliance, and its principal members were glad to join, in 1849-51, with the Herald in the combina- tion for news-getting which is now known as the New York Associated Press. The newspaper of to-day has retained some of the worst features of early journalistic work and lost many of the best features. Truman A. De Weese, of the editorial staff of the Chicago Record-Herald, wri- 190 THE UNITED STATES ting in the Independent some time ago, said: "The journalistic leaders whose virile pens and forceful personalities vitalized and illumined every line of the editorial page, have nearly all passed away. Only a few of that school of writers who believe it to be the function of a newspaper to mold public opinion and proclaim the transcendent virtues of a particular party are left. The journalist of to-day is impersonal, hence irresponsible. The personality of the writers is obscured. The public can not connect editorial utterance with a personality that stands for expert knowledge or common honesty. Is it unnatural that the public should gradually decline to regard the un- signed editorial or newspaper article as worthy of uni- versal acceptation as ' the law and the gospel ' on any particular subject?" This same writer illustrates the sinking of the in- dividuality of the journahst of to-day as follows: ^'Suppose you are in public office, and you find on reading over the editorial page of the Herald some morning that you are characterized as a * boodler.' Of course, the editor is supposed to be responsible, but if you start on a search for him, the chances are that you will find he is in Europe. You would like to find the man who wrote the editorial. But you won't find him. His personality is hidden behind the fallacious theory that ' the newspaper is greater than the writer ' who furnishes brains for it ! How can a salable print be greater than the men who make it? If the cupidity or meanness of the publisher led him to point out the editorial detractor to you, in order to shield himself, you would not have the heart to put him in jail, even if you could. He is merely a THE UNITED STATES 191 hired man, sinking his individuality and obscuring his personaHty from the world in an effort to carry out * the policy of the paper.' " In the opinion of Mr. De Weese, the newspaper is not, could not be, and should not pretend to be, anything but a commercial enterprise, and he gives these reasons: "First, the impersonal editorial character of the modern daily in the larger cities makes it impossible for the public to connect its editorial utterances or news articles with any responsible authority." And he quotes Mr. Brooks Fisher : " With the press in the hands of business men, therefore, its abdication of leadership in the style of the Thunderer and of the famous journals of the past in this country, is a foregone conclusion." Of the "new journalism" Mr. Fisher says that the newspaper "for business abdi- cates the old function and dignity of and duty of the press in leadership, and instead of fronting the mob, follows it." " * The power of the press,' " says Mr. De Weese, "is a pleasant bit of fiction kept alive by the politicians, who cajole the editor into pounding away in the in- terest of their party, — which is generally for their personal enrichment, — while the editor lives in a rented cottage and his coal bill goes unpaid. The journalism that is to wield any influence in the fu- ture must be a signed journalism, such as now finds its representation in the weekly and monthly maga- zines, with their timely and forceful discussion of 192 THE UNITED STATES living issues and contemporaneous happenings by men and women of acknowledged standing in special fields of thought and investigation." Second, he thinks the newspaper should be con- sidered in the light of a commercial enterprise, be- cause it "is not endowed by the state or by any party or propaganda." He asks these questions : " Why should the editor risk his private means to ' teach ' the masses, to instruct them as to their political obliga- tions and duties ? Who is going to pay him for 'front- ing the mob ? ' ''Third, the newspaper is not only not an endowed institution, but the state exacts no professional re- quirements or standards from those who desire to practice journalism." The writer cites that lawyers, doctors, teachers, and in some states barbers and horseshoers, must be examined as to their fitness for the business they desire to follow. But in journalism "any man, no matter how unlettered, vicious, or de- praved, may start a newspaper and scatter broad- cast the seeds of sedition, class hatred, and dis- content, or the fruits of ignorant, narrow-minded prejudice. "Fourth, the unavoidable inaccuracy of the news- gathering machinery of the modern daily newspaper. In most cases this inaccuracy is the fruit of a system that attempts to cover the events and transactions of the earth every twenty-four hours. "In the face of these conditions," asks the writer, "why should the newspaper cling to the fiction that THE UNITED STATES 193 it is a ' teacher ' and not a commercial enterprise ? " But he adds : "The transition from ' journalism ' to the * news- paper industry ' need not involve any loss of power and dignity on the part of the daily press. As a purely commercial proposition, it may still be a mighty force in human affairs. Its financial success as a commercial enterprise places it in a position of ab- solute editorial independence. It will still be the motion picture of civilization. Any organized industry that daily sweeps the wide domain of human thought and activity and spreads before the people every morning or afternoon a picture of the world's important hap- penings and transactions^ with rational, sane, and well-tempered editorial side-lights thrown upon them, could not fail to be incomparably the greatest and most powerful among the forces that make for human progress." Many people believe that American journalism to- day is not just what it should be, and in an address on the subject to the students of journalism at Yale, Mr. Munsey has thrown some side-lights on its status to-day, its needs, and its possible future. Since no one is better able to expound the subject than this great journalist, we can not do better than to quote from him. He says : "The newspaper man of to-day is a composite type, the product of the New York Sun and the New York World of fifteen or eighteen years ago. These two newspapers represented two distinct and widely 13 194 THE UNITED STATES different styles of journalism. The World was alert, daring, aggressive, and sensational. It was about the liveliest thing that ever swung into New York from the West. Nominally, it was here long before Mr. Pulitzer's day, but actually it came with his advent. It shook up the entire American press. It did new things, and did them with a dash. Its circulation bounded from nothing to hundreds of thousands. Other newspapers were being forced upon the rocks. The World was It. *'The result of this cyclonic success was that most men, and especially young men just entering the pro- fession, accepted Mr. Pulitzer and his newspaper methods as the only guide to position and wealth; hence the great army of Pulitzer journalists that stretches from the shores of Maine to the Golden Gate. "No man ever stamped himself more thoroughly upon his generation than has Joseph Pulitzer on the journalism of America. He was the originator and the founder of our present type of overgrown Hewspaper, with its illustrations and its merits and defects. ''The part the Sun played in this recreating and rejuvenating of the American press was purely lit- erary. It was the first newspaper to make fiction out of facts; that is, to handle facts with the skill and the manner of the novelist, so that they read like fic- tion and possessed all its charm and .fascination. "The Sim at that time consisted of but four pages. With the exception of one or two of these fiction- THE UNITED STATES 195 fact stories so charmingly told, it was the perfection of condensation. ''Attractive as were the Stin's fiction stories, their influence upon journalism has been as unfortunate in some respects as that of the Pulitzer methods. They were copied from one end of the country to the other, but the imitator never quite hits anything off on the same key. We have their verbosity without their cleverness. Instead of being limited to one or two articles, at most, as was the case with the old Sun, they have been multiplied until they well-nigh fill the whole paper. In time this Sun style became mixed with the World style, resulting eventually in a mon- grel product which is largely the vogue to-day." Regarding the present needs of journalism, Mr. Munsey says: "What we most need in our Amercian journalism to-day, it seems to me, is a new school of newspaper men. We have reached a condition where one can not safely accept a piece of news as true until it is verified. We need to get back to the fundamental simplicity and straightforward honesty." Mr. Munsey says the trouble is not with the men ; it is with the standard. The reporters of to-day are living up to their conception of this standard of wide- awake, modern journalism. "A newspaper staff," says Mr. Munsey, "must be created from young men. Money can not buy it nor can it be transplanted. 196 THE UNITED STATES ''The daily journal is almost wholly the product of the men a publisher has about him. As the men are, so will the paper be. The men then are the fun- damental thing in newspaper making." Of the journalism of the future, Mr. Munsey sounds this note of hope : "The journalism of the future will be of a higher order than the journalism of the past or the present. Existing conditions of competition and waste, under individual ownership, make the ideal newspaper im- possible. But with a central ownership big enough and strong enough to encompass the whole country, our newspapers can afford to be independent, fear- less, and honest. It will no longer be a question of keeping the machinery in motion. "Then giants will be the heart and brain of our journalism. This new journalism will have a faculty such as no university in the world ever had or ever will have. A million dollars a year for the general editorial department for a chain of a thousand papers will mean only a thousand dollars to each paper. "An organization like this will call for the best there is in men^ and will command the wisdom and the culture of the world. With such a faculty at the head of our newspapers, you will have a post-grad- uate course in your own home and the people will have their university." We have endeavored to give, and think we have succeeded, two widely differing views of American journalism. Both are correct from each individual THE UNITED STATES 197 point of view. 'Tis beyond question that the news- paper has been converted from pure journaHsm into an industry. It is equally true that it is a ''teacher," and that its province in the future progress of civi- lization will be still more that of an educator and molder of public opinion.^ CHAPTER XVI THE AMERICAN PULPIT NO comprehensive view of the origin and growth of American institutions can be had apart from some just appreciation of the part the American pulpit has taken therein. While the pulpit is far from being American in its origin, it is within the frontier of fact to say that it has reached a higher point of development and of comparative power here than anywhere else. The forum being the first-born institution of a democracy, leads the way to the pul- pit being a live instead of a merely dogmatic force in the development of that democracy. There is no stage of American history where the pulpit has not been conspicuous, even in the present day when the fashion seems to be to count it among the second-rate forces. The republic virtually began to live in the words of a preacher, John Robinson, who stood on the shore as the Pilgrim Fathers began their first journey westward and, besides bidding them Godspeed and adjuring them to be true to their prin- ciples^ enunciated that historic word "that God has still more light and truth to break forth from his Word." When the Pilgrim Fathers landed, their meeting-house was constructed coincident with their homes. As the colonies grew, the minister was a man of authority, and his pulpit the newspaper, bulletin- 198 THE UNITED STATES 199 board and seat of religious authority. As the mental strength of the nation grew and Emerson, himself a pulpiteer for a time, issued what has been called the American declaration of intellectual independence, creating what historians have overlooked as an epoch equal in significance to a national struggle, the gaunt- let was taken up by the pulpits and grain threshed from chaff to the broadening of the people's outlook. And when civil war was imminent, it was the promi- nent pulpits of the country that bade the fearful see God's hand in the conflict, and while armies supplied the physical force of war, pulpits furnished the moral justification and altruistic motive. In these days the pulpit's power is of a finer and more potent kind, as it seeks to turn the nation from mere commercialism. Thus as adviser, governor, interpreter, and inspira- tion the pulpit can not be left out of any epoch with- out leaving an unexplained gap. All great movements of men are essentially relig- ious movements, although not recognized as such. There is a moral subtone underlying every word the peoples speak seriously. Though it were but rebel- lion, Cromwell's soldiers sang psalms and heard ser- mons. Though it were not far from fratricide, the pulpits of the North spoke cheer to the armies, as did the pulpits of the South. Though it meant blood- shed, the pulpits had no little to do with the emanci- pation of Cuba. In all these movements the moral sense of the people was aroused, and they looked to the pulpits for the spiritual interpretation of the un- 200 THE UNITED STATES rest that had seized upon them. There has been, there can be, no far-reaching movement affecting the mass without the power of the pulpit being felt. Even the revolutionists of Paris must have their god- dess and certain skeptical philosophers to act with them in the stead of priests. This condition seems to be an absolute necessity to all popular movements. It is customary in some quarters to say that the pulpit's power is fast waning before the marked de- velopment of the press. It has been contended that even now the printed page is usurping the place of the living voice. Apparently there is some ground for this contention^ but why it should be held exclu- sively in relation to the pulpit is not explained, and if it were, it would but discover the weakness of the contention. Wagner's wonderfully spiritual operatic work can be had in the printed page. Score and words of "Parsifal" may be had at any store for a small sum of money. One may sit in one's chair and have before one's eyes the full orchestration of the most elaborate production of any of these master works. One may in the silence of one's chamber read the inspiring lines of the young shepherd in search of what he knows not of — the mystic ideal. But — does one do this? Is it not true that an increasing number of persons in this and other countries are weeding out of their tastes a less artistic class of plays and going in greater numbers and with greater appreciation than ever to witness the exposition of these high moral themes? It is apparently true that THE UNITED STATES 201 in this instance, at least, the printed page is not crowd- ing out the hving voice and action. But, to confine the examination to its purely lit- erary side : is the printed page of Shakespeare ob- scuring the pulsing characters that portray his thought in the garb and speech of the day it came to him? Then, why^ out of all the provinces in which the press can supplant the person, is only the pulpit chosen as the province that must be conquered? The essential strength of the American pulpit is the living voice in a plea for righteousness. Abstract principles can no more stir the moral impulse than can a phonograph nerve an army for battle. Em- bodied principles are the only ones the masses rec- ognize, and examples are more potent than precepts. Until the living voice loses its inspiring force; until the spiritual appeal ceases to find response; until the natural hunger of the people for knowledge of the higher life and ideal things ceases to be felt, the American pulpit will be a necessary part of American life. No territory in all the world has been more fer- tile of sects whose activities are missionary than has America. From our earliest day there have been di- visions theological, until the veriest hair-splitter fails in his attempts to discover the exact points of differ- ence. But the point is that each of these divisions has its host of propagandists and each propagandist his pulpit. Hence the wide diffusion of the pulpit. From ultraspiritualism to ultramaterialism the creeds 202 THE UNITED STATES are written, and preachers by scores support those creeds. From the veriest orthodoxy to the broadest liberaHsm there are pulpits standing for distinctive doctrines or for no doctrines at all. But they are pul- pits, nevertheless, and go to enlarge that composite in- stitution we here call the American pulpit. From Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards to Henry Ward Beecher and Felix Adler is a long step, both chronologically and theologically, but between these points is all that is contained in the term Amer- ican pulpit. And in this the American pulpit differs from the pulpits of other countries. There is no com- parison whatever between the English pulpit^ for in- stance, and the American pulpit any more than there is any similarity in the commercial methods and achieve- ments of the two countries. The pulpit of America has partaken of the broad sweep and liberty that is characteristic of our national ideals. It is not cir- cumscribed except by Deity on one side and humanity on the other. Between these points it moves as freely as it chooses or dares, and even heresy trials are go- ing out of fashion. The first point of difference is in the theology of the American pulpit, if its body of doctrine can be called a theology rather than a theologica-sociology. There were no sterner doctrinaires than those who came to these shores in the "Mayflower" or in other ships bearing the seed of the new country. They brought with them theological positions essentially Calvinistic. Theirs was a stern warfare against evil THE UNITED STATES 203 and their notion of Deity was that of an unbending august ruler and disposer of events. Literalism, twin- sister of superstition, was the order of study, preach- ing profession, and action. The sudden darkening of the day sent the people to their churches or their prayer closets. The sudden appearance of a band of Indians made the elders search for an Achan in the camp. A series of misfortunes could be attrib- uted to nothing else than a witch. Whatever men suffered here was said to be nothing compared to the punishment stored up against the one who frac- tured holy laws in the smallest jot or tittle. It was only under conditions such as this that Jonathan Ed- wards could launch his terrible sermon concerning pun.shment, and cause strong men to grovel on the ground m a very passion of fear and terror. It was only under such conditions as this that ministers of religion could preside at the burning of a " witch " But as the conditions of life softened, so did the hearts of the people soften, and their Deity, who be- fore had been regarded as stern as themselves, began to be spoken of as infinite love. From this change came gentle men like Channing and Emerson to the pulpit, teaching the beautiful side of Deity. Of course, their positions were assailed in their day but the mfluence of Whittier, Lowell, Parker, and oihers soon began to permeate the lesser pulpits of the land until It can be said to-day that Emerson preaches in part from almost every religious platform in the country. 204 THE UNITED STATES The evolution of the American pulpit, here re- ferred to in the briefest outline, is one of the points of difference — that a pulpit should have an evolu- tion at all — between it and the pulpit of other lands. But yet another change was in store, and in this the American pulpit showed most superbly its practi- cality and adaptability. In Germany scholars were working on what has wrongly been called the higher criticism. German pulpits became little more than seminary lecture rooms. Results of practical value were obtained, doubtless, but the German theolo- gians did not look beyond the result to its possible use in behalf of needy men. In time, inklings of the work of German scholars came filtering into the stud- ies where the American pulpit did its preparatory work. Then ensued a notable illustration of that saying that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. With half an idea, half of the American pul- pit became iconoclastic. It seemed to their clientele that the very foundations of faith were tottering. Polemic war raged between pulpit and pulpit. Minor things were raised to the dignity of essentials. To the world at large it looked as if this condition would result in a rending to pieces by itself of the pulpit, and the religious world looked on aghast at what it called the apostasy of its recognized leaders. Preacher after preacher seemed to be imbued with the desire for notoriety by making a fresh denial and attracting contention and publicity. It was a period of much discussion and not enough study. THE UNITED STATES 205 Then it became known that no criticism is valu- able unless it be constructive^ and it seems now that the pulpit is going back to its positive work of up- building. With it, it is carrying all of good it gained from German scholars, and is applying that good sys- tematically to the upbuilding of its people. In fact, the pulpit is back where it was in the beginning but with a larger outlook and a greater amount of humil- ity regarding the eternal things which it must see through a glass darkly. The American pulpit found that there is no the- ology without a sociology. That is the discovery it made during its period of unrest. In this respect the American pulpit differs most widely from others. It was Henry Drummond who first used the term "spiri- tual diagnosis." It was Moody, the evangelist of the reaction, who made the inquiry room a sort of a spiri- tual consulting room. And now the greater of the eastern theological seminaries is instituting what it calls a ''spiritual laboratory" in the form of a social settlement. The work of the pulpit is thus being humanized and taken as one with nature. There is more sociological wcfrk being done by the American pulpit than any pulpit in the world. Indeed, the day has come when an organized assembly of Christians employ not one, but two, three, even four pastors- one whose talent is to preach ; another whose talent is pastoral ; another who can direct the social life of the church in such a way as to make it a valuable adjunct to the pulpit. The institutional church is the result 206 THE UNITED STATES of the pulpit's belief that man has more than one side to his nature. Reading-rooms^ baths, gymnasia, clubs, courses of study, etc.^ are frequently to be met with in the most useful churches, the theory being really the long-hidden one of the Apostle Paul, that man has mind, soul, and body; and again, that not that is first which is spiritual^ but that which is natu- ral, and after, that which is spiritual. The method is that one must be a good animal — a good being phys- ically — before one can adequately appreciate one's spiritual opportunities. Thus theology has come to recognize the laws of life, and sociology to teach their practice. Combined, they make the greatest uplifting force the world has ever known. It was the Ameri- can pulpit which took this step, and instead of falter- ing before the cry that the pulpit is useless, the pulpit has answered merely by entering a field of un- limited usefulness. In line with this, and led largely at the outset by the Roman Catholic Churchy the Ameri- can pulpit is making itself a power in the enforce- ment of ideals and laws which will prevent the disin- tegration of society. It thunders against divorce; it attacks child slavery; it rejects blood-money because it knows the donors mean it to be hush-money; it points out political corruption; it preaches the gospel of commercial honesty^ the gospel of political decency, the gospel of a chance for the poor. In other words, it takes the old gospel that used to be but used for spiritual food and applies it directly as a balm to the social wounds of the world. The most noteworthy THE UNITED STATES 207 achievement of the American pulpit, then, is the suc- cess it has had in helping men to identify religion with life. The American pulpit, however, has not confined itself to sermons and churches ; it has entered the broad field of literature, and has given that tone that distinguishes the best American workmanship in let- ters. The fact is, that our literature dates from a certain old manse in Concord. When the lyceum was such a force in the country, it was manned mostly by ministers who found a pulpit in every city and ham- let throughout the land from which to preach to the people on subjects close to the nation's heart. And if one looks over the names of the men who have done worthy work to-day, one will find the names of many men who stand in the American pulpit. In fiction as well as in philosophy the American pulpit has been found to contain efficient workmen. It is true that to-day the pulpit has not that lordly author- ity it had a century ago, and this is well for the pul- pit. In a day when a minister's word is taken with- out question of it being the wisest word, there is a tendency to speak words without questioning whether they be even partially wise. The man in the pulpit can no longer hide behind his office. No longer can he speak his word and retire within the mystery of his calling. This is a day in which all things are tested, and the true word is held whether it be spoken by a layman or a clergyman. Thus it comes that the clergyman of to-day is, generally, a bigger man men- 208 THE UNITED STATES tally than his forerunners, although one is tempted sometimes to think the contrary when one reviews the ponderous tomes written by spiritual leaders of the last two centuries. It is by the very worth of the thing said that the pulpit survives and keeps its place as leader. If it can announce the irrevocable laws of life ; if it can show beyond doubt the unbreakable con- nection between moral sowing and moral reaping; if it can show in living words the futility of risking one's character for gain — and the possibility of losing both ; if it can without a doubt prepare a man's mind to see clearly that though wicked men seem to flourish for the time, there is yet a greater and more substan- tial enjoyment for those who keep their honor un- sullied, then the pulpit shall have rendered a service to the country that is not eclipsed by any of the coun- try's servants, military, judicial, or commercial. And to the credit of the American pulpit let it be said that it is doing just these things. The peril of the pulpit lies in the pew, it is agreed. For some years past there has been serious discus- sion as to where the American pulpit of the next generation can be recruited. There is an alarming falling off in the number of aspirants for the min- istry of some branches of the church. This is caused by two conditions : one, the difficulty with which the public has come to realize the changed attitude of the pulpit toward its real work, and the other is the lack of financial rewards in the ministry when compared with the rewards of other professions. Those with THE UNITED STATES 209 the best interests of the American ministry at heart will do well to be glad that these two conditions ex- ist; they augur well for the ministry of the future. Those who are deterred from entering the ministry because of the financial compensation being small may well be out of the pulpit. Those who have not yet the larger conception of the ministry as revealed in its larger work, may well stay out, too. The hope is that no one will enter the ministry as a ''profes- sion" in which one is paid for his service. The hope is that the ministry of the future will be recruited only from those who enter the pulpit because necessity is laid on them— even though the number of ministers of all churches be reduced one-half or more. The key-note of the ministry is consecration, not compen- sation. The field of the future in the ministry is as noble a field as a noble man can contemplate, and the power that adjusts all things can be trusted to sup- ply men who lead and do not follow in spiritual things. When we have true perspective of our history, it will be found that along with American diplomacy, American military and naval skill, American admin- istration, American industry, there stands an equal force — the American pulpit.^ THE END AUTHORSHIP OF CHAPTERS a, h, c, in, and o, Ethlyn T. Clough. d and /, Hon. James Bryce. e, Edwin Earle Sparks, Ph. D. g, Appleton's Magazine. h, Frederick Austin Ogg, in The World's Work. i, Thomas R. Shipp, in The Reader Magazine. j, Various authors in The World To-day and The World's Work, k, John Gilmer Speed, in The Outlook. I, Allan L. Benson, in Appleton's Magazine, n, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, p, William J. Cameron. ^^B 9 1908 /