himself becomes a minister, has a long fight with poverty and ill-health, but at forty-five holds as high a place as his profession affords, and every line in his face and every tone in his voice betoken the gentleman. The sons and daughters of a successful shopkeeper take the highest places in the most cultivated society of their native place, and well deserve the preeminence accorded to them. The daughter of a man of very imperfect education, who began life with nothing and became a rich merchant, is singularly beautiful from youth to age, and possesses to the highest degree the charm of dignified and gracious manners. A young girl, not long out of school, the child of respectable but obscure parents, marries a public man, and in conspicuous station bears herself with a grace, discretion, and nobleness which she could not have exceeded had her blood been royal for seven generations. Striking cases of this kind will occur to every person in this assembly. They are everyday phenomena in American society. What conclusion do they establish? They prove that the social mobility of a democracy, which permits the excellent and wellendowed of either sex to rise and to seek out each other, and which gives every advantageous variation or sport in a family stock free opportunity to develop, is immeasurably more beneficial to a nation than any selective in-breeding, founded on class distinctions, which has ever been devised. Since democracy has every advantage for producing in due season and proportion the best human types, it is reasonable to expect that science and literature, music and art, and all the finer graces of society will develop and thrive in America, as soon as the more urgent tasks of subduing a wilderness and organizing society upon an untried plan are fairly accomplished.

Such are some of the reasons drawn from experience for believing that our ship of state is stout and sound; but she sails—

the happiness of the greatest number her destined haven. Her safety requires incessant watchfulness and readiness. Without trusty eyes on the lookout, and a prompt hand at the wheel, the

stoutest ship may be dismantled by a passing squall. It is only intelligence and discipline which carry the ship to its port.

THE SURVIVAL OF CIVIL LIBERTY'

FRANKLIN HENRY GIDDINGS

[Franklin Henry Giddings (1855- —) is a distinguished American sociologist. He was born in Sherman, Connecticut. After graduating from Union College, he engaged in journalism for several years. In 1888 he became professor of sociology in Bryn Mawr, holding this position until 1894 when he went to Columbia University. He is now professor of sociology and the history of civilization in that institution. The selection here given was first delivered as a commencement address at Oberlin College, June, 1899. Although it was called forth by the Spanish-American War, it is pertinent to the situation of the present day.]

Recent events have raised the question of the stability of American institutions. The war with Spain was bitterly deplored by many educated men, who feared that military activity would necessarily create arbitrary power and curtail the liberties of individual citizens. When our demand for the cession of the Philippine Islands was included in the terms of peace, and the treaty of Paris was followed by the despatch of troops to Manila to put down insurrection, these opponents of the nation's policy, believing that their worst fears were being realized, asserted that the American people, intoxicated with military success, were blindly departing from all the safe traditions of their history to enter upon a hazardous and probably fatal experiment of imperialism. The arguments of these men have disquieted many timid souls, some of whom seem to be already convinced that our republic is verily a thing of history-one more splendid failure added to the long list of glorious, but tragic attempts of earth's bravest sons to build an enduring state upon foundations of equality and self-government. Indeed, so despondent have some of our self-styled anti-imperialists become that, in their bitterness, they do not hesitate to malign the character of their fel

From Democracy and Empire. (Copyright, 1900, The Macmillan Company.) Reprinted by permission.

low-citizens, or to insult the fair fame of the nation that has nurtured and that still defends them. In one lamentable instance, a citizen of honored name has so far lost all sense of reality as to declare in a public address that "we are a great assassin nation," and that "the slaughter of patriots stains our hands."

And yet, these proclamations of doom have failed to arouse the nation. Some seventy millions of people continue their daily vocations in serenity of mind, wholly unconscious of the impending extinction of their liberties. Does this mean that the plain people, the bone and sinew of the nation, who hitherto have shown themselves intelligent enough to deal wisely and fearlessly with the gravest issues of human welfare are, after all, amazingly obtuse? Does it mean that, after a hundred years of level-headed self-government, the American people are now blindly moving toward a ruin which clear-sighted men should plainly foresee? Or, does it rather mean that these millions of plain people, with all their mental limitations, are still, as so often they have been in the past, immeasurably wiser-that they are gifted with a deeper insight, that they are endowed with a truer knowledge and a saner judgment, and that they are fortified with a sturdier faith-than are the prophets of gloom? That the latter is the true explanation I have not the shadow of a doubt, and for a brief hour I ask your attention to reasons in support of this belief.

And, first of all, we have the undeniable fact that the faith itself which the American people feel in their own power, in the stability of their institutions, and in the nobility of their destiny, is at the present moment unbounded. Whatever the pessimists may say, the millions of hard-working, common people do not believe that republican government has failed, or that civil liberty is not to be the heritage of their sons. Never since the Constitution was ratified by the thirteen original commonwealths have the American people, as a whole, felt so confident of their place among the nations, or so sure of the excellence of their polity, and of the vitality of their laws and immunities. Never have they been so profoundly convinced that

their greatest work for civilization lies not in the past, but in the future. They stand at the beginning of the twentieth century, in their own minds fully assured that the responsibilities which they are about to face, and that the achievements which they expect to complete, are immeasurably greater than are those which have crowned the century of their experiment and discipline.

What, then, are the sources of this faith? Is it a baseless enthusiasm, a thoughtless confidence born of an ignorant conceit, or is it in reality a substantial and truthful forecast of the future, which we may safely accept, as one that is neither more nor less than a projection into coming years of those lessons that experience has taught us in the past?

The sources of all genuine faith in the future are two. The first is vitality. The second is our knowledge of what already is or has been.

The consciousness of vigorous life, the sense of physical power, imparts to those who have it an unconquerable faith in their ability to achieve; and this mere vitality is undoubtedly the primal source of the American's faith in himself and in the destiny of his country. It is also our best assurance that the faith will find realization. In no other population is there such abounding energy, such inventive ability, such fearless enterprise as in the American people. This vitality has been manifested not only in our industrial enterprise, but also in that very territorial expansion which of late has been under discussion. From the Louisiana purchase to the annexation of Hawaii we have seized, with unhesitating promptness, every opportunity to broaden our national domain and to extend our institutions to annexed populations. Even more convincingly has our vigor been shown in the fearlessness with which the cost of every new responsibility has been met. Whether this cost has been paid in treasure or in blood, the American people have met it without one moment's hesitation. Physical courage is, after all, the elemental factor in a nation's power, the very fountainhead of its moral stability and its faith; and that in such courage we are not lacking, the records of Lexington and Yorktown, of New

M

Orleans and Chapultepec, of Antietam and Gettysburg, of Manila and El Caney, will tell.

Next to vitality, and supplementing it, the basis of faith in the future is a sound, full knowledge of the present and the past. The American people know facts about their own numbers, resources, and activities, which fully justify their belief that they are at the beginning, not approaching the end, of their evolution as a civilized nation. Only in a few spots within our national domain does the density of population yet approach the average density of the older European countries. Notwithstanding the rapidity with which the best lands of the interior and of the Southwest have been appropriated as homesteads, the intensive cultivation of our vast domain has hardly begun. While, according to the census of 1890, the states constituting the north Atlantic division had a population of 107 to the square mile, the United States as a whole had less than 22 to the square mile. The western division had less than 3 to the square mile; the great north central division, comprising some of the most prosperous commonwealths in the Union, had less than 30; and the south Atlantic division, comprising the old slave-owning and cotton-growing states, had less than 33. A population of 300,000,000, instead of 75,000,000, or 80,000,000, would not seriously tax our food-producing capacity.

Into this domain the population of Europe continues to discharge its overflow; and the stream of immigration shows no marked decrease save in the exceptional years of industrial depression. Of chief significance, however, is the fact that the greater part of all the immigration that we have thus far received has consisted of the same nationalities from whose amalgamation the original American stock was produced. England, Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia have sent to our shores the greater part of our population not descended from the American colonists. Of the foreign-born population enumerated in the United States in 1890, 33.76 per cent were from the United Kingdom, 30.11 per cent were from Germany, 10.61 per cent from Canada, 10.09 per cent from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, 1.22 per cent from France, leaving only 14.21 per cent