USA > West Virginia > Pendleton County > A history of Pendleton County, West Virginia > Part 42
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It is true enough that the wealth of the United States has grown from one billion dollars in 1790 to 120 billions in 1908; a speed six times more rapid than that of population. Yet it is not overstating the truth to say that the brood of million- aires has increased a thousand fold. It has never been clearly explained how in twenty or thirty years a citizen can ad- vance out of relative poverty into the control of a hoard of wealth that makes him and it a public menace, unless he has been using methods suggestive of the man with a sandbag. We see and hear much of automobiles, parlor cars, and costly mansions, yet more than a half of the American people are not living in homes of their own.
The 120 billions of national wealth is a dazzling spectacle, yet it has not been piled up without causing an inexcusable waste of soil, forest, and mineral. The Americans have been tumbling over one another in their reckless looting of a store- house of natural resource that is indeed rich, yet not very far from being inexhaustible. The word success has been spelled with dollar marks, and the dollar mark has been held to cover a multitude of shortcomings. The captain of industry is as intolerant of the restraint of written or unwritten law as was his ancestor who lived in the robber castle or sailed on the pirate ship. His spirit and his methods are imitated by the lieutenant, the sergeant, and the corporal of industry.
Hypnotized by the many possibilities coming swiftly into view a half century since, the American people fell into what may well be termed industrial inebriation. The new era has been hurried along in every conceivable manner and with such unsettling swiftness that the power to make money and
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to command time and opportunity has outrun the power to make a correspondingly wise use of the money, the time, or the opportunity. The too rapid change has spread in every direction the habits of instability, wastefulness, a disposition to shirk or belittle the responsibilities of life, and a hundred- headed intemperance and dissipation. To put the whole matter in a sentence, the American nation has not been single-minded in the pursuit of its national ideal. It has put the realistic ideal of Material Prosperity in front of the ideal- istic ideal of Social Democracy. It has provided the former with a locomotive greyhound and the latter with a freight engine.
Backward-flowing eddies have appeared in the current that has been sweeping us forward toward the goal of Social De- mocracy. A new life has been breathed into the once shrink- ing ghosts of caste and privilege. The petted ideal of Ma- terial Prosperity does not at heart recognize the sovereignty of the people. Toward the public its policy is the same as that of special privilege in any age. It appeals to them through the stomach, knowing that the well-fed man will shut his eyes while the law is being side-tracked, legislative bodies worked upon, and one political party played off against another. The "full dinner pail" was the bribe offered a few years ago to the working citizen, so that the industrial bandit might have a freer hand in his game of "high finance."
The spirit of Social Democracy is at its best where there is an absence of caste and a homogeneity of blood. Having done all it can to overthrow the rising tendency to equality among the American people, commercialism has likewise done all it can to upset the homogeneity which was very greatly true in 1840. Putting up the false plea that the American people could not do the work of their own country, commercialism has induced an immigration that has been ex- cessive, uncalled for, and in the long run injurious. The motive for this inundation is the same as that which sent white serfs and black slaves to the colonial shore. It is not yet true that Europe is over-populated. Neither is it the duty of America to be a safety-valve for European discon- tent, so that privileged abuses beyond the Atlantic may en- joy a new lease of life. The young, virile American nation did not need any infusion of new blood; especially not the diseased, unsympathetic, and imperfectly assimilable sort that has furnished the bulk of the immigration of the last twenty-five years. The dictates of national prudence would have limited the source of inflow to those countries which had supplied the colonial immigrants. There would have been a restriction of even this inflow. It has been shown on
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good authority that the deluge has displaced a natural in- crease of the colonial element to an extent about equal to its own bulk. In other words, America would still have about its present number of people, even had the immigration been of only nominal extent. America would have preserved its homogeneity, resisted the revival of the spirit of caste, and made greater strides toward fulfilling its proper destiny.
Our country has committed a national error in rushing headlong into an industrial career, and in playing fast and loose with every phase of national well being for the sake of that low, material end. It has forgotten the adage that "Rome was not built in a day." Our true national ideal could not thrive in the face of so much zeal to create Carnegies and palaces at one end of the social scale and debased workmen known only by number at the other end. Commercialism has stimulated the building of overgrown cities with their vitiated public spirit, their corrupt governments, and their artificial life. It has given the city an artificial attractive- ness. It has discriminated against the farm, and then in- sulted the farmer by ridiculing him as a has-been. Yet the country is the head-spring of a nation's life. No common- wealth has ever been overthrown by its own farmers.
Theodore Roosevelt has very truly observed that "no in- dustrial development can atone for any falling off in the character and standing of the farming population." His successor thus follows out the same thought: "Country life tends toward sane, philosophical, and quiet consideration of the problems of life. It takes out that nervous exhaustion of energy, that hurry that carries men quickly to the grave. It makes for the happiness of individuals and families far more than any trade or profession that brings you into the great maelstrom of city life."
The life of the city is a continual stress. The speedier pulse is gained by putting down the democratic simplicity and fraternity of the country district. Indifference, selfish- ness, and coldness are the characteristics of a city population. The social exclusiveness, the giddy pursuit of pleasure and excitement, the tawdry display of dress and luxury, as wit- nessed in the town, are a servile imitation of the doings of the "smart set" in the distant city. The American people are spending more on their amusements than on their schools. Prosperity depreciates manhood as quickly as poverty. Char- acter sinks in value under the rule of commercialism. The courtesy and thoughtfulness of an earlier day are esteemed too slow for the brusque, "get-there" manners of the new regime.
The "federation of the world" is more than the dream of
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an idealistic poet. It is a prophecy that will yet come true. But commercialism with the instinct of the hog in the feed- trough orders the building of enormous armaments and ex- pects the poor to fight the rich man's battle. The peace which depends on the fear of a neighbor's armament is noth- ing less than a suppressed war. A standing army is a hot- bed of caste and snobbery, and its drones in uniform too often acquire a contempt for the men who toil.
It is the American habit to portray an evil quite faithfully, yet to conclude with the foggy assurance that "all will some- how come right." The foundation of a better future is in- deed always with us, yet it does not develop of its own ac- cord. The happy-go-lucky confidence of the American is like giving this advice to the man lost on the bank of a river : "Don't follow the bank; that's too slow. Jump on a log and take the current. Never mind the rapids. You'll come out somewhere if you don't drown."
The old days cannot be conjured back. Our environment is ever changing. "It seems a part of the plan of the Weaver to allow us, occasionally, to unravel the product of a toilsome period of years. Yet the work is resumed, and the fabric grows in beauty of design." The prosperity that has sprung out of our modern era has created a new form of privilege. It has replaced slavery with commercialism and brought class distinctions back to life. Yet after all the new privilege is not secure in its saddle, even if it has not yet permitted the realization of social justice, which is the cor- nerstone of Social Democracy.
The call of the hour is not so much to a simple life in it- self as to a simple purpose amid the distractions of the ex- isting complex life. The great need of the day is to bring forward the idealistic forces which exists among us, but which the dry-rot of commercialism would suffocate. This will lead to a far-reaching moral revolution and a profound social reconstruction. In this way may be realized in a broad sense the prophecy of Luther Burbank : "A day will come when the earth will be transformed; when man will offer his brother man not bullets and bayonets, but richer grains, better fruits, fairer flowers."
An Interpretation of the War of 1861
There is a story of two travelers who approached from op- posite directions a high pillar. One man said it was white. The other said it was red. Each traveler was so sure the other was entirely wrong that he called the man before him a liar and a blockhead. After indulging in some fist exer-
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cise they were both astonished to find the pillar white on one side and red on the other.
Something like this was true of the controversy culminat- ing in the American war of 1861. Each side was certain it was wholly in the right and the other side wholly in the wrong. Each partisan was seeing things not as they were but as he was. He was consequently almost color-blind as to recognizing the purity of motive that governed the actions of his opponent.
The American too young to have known those tragic days for himself picks up a book by a prominent actor on the one side, and toils patiently through its many pages. The argu- ment is seemingly unassailable. He then picks up a book by an actor on the other side and toils through an opposite argu- ment that seems no less convincing. Now each writer is sincere. He has truth on his side. Yet he grew up in an environment that presented only one side to the matter. He is wasting a quantity of good ink in proving that the white side of the pillar is white, or that the red side is red.
The causes of that great war are usually discussed as though almost wholly due to party politics. This is not true. The purely political presentation is superficial and involves a more or less constant appeal to distrust and prejudice. It is neither fair, just, nor patriotic to hold up the acts of the one party as clean and spotless throughout and the acts of the other party as base and dishonorable throughout.
When we see a football in lively motion we know there is a force below it. When the football is a political question we may know the force below is some economic or social problem whereon the people of the country feel impelled to take action. Any such action is two-sided, because people divide instinctively into radical and conservative factions. The political discussion, so often intemperate and bitter, is somewhat like eruption in a contagious fever. The eruption is the visible and unpleasant evidence of a disease affecting not the skin alone but the entire body. To call a political opponent pet names and impute to him every sort of un- worthy motive is about as shortsighted as to tell our fever patient to go wash his face and rub off the eruptive marks.
To the present generation the war of 1861 is history. These younger Americans wish to know what is was all about. They have as deep an interest in the country as their elders. They will not wince if the truth pinches here and there. Some one has said there will be written a history of the American conflict which both the once warring sections will approve. That time is not quite here, but it is rapidly com- ing. The history in question will be written by grandsons of
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Federal and Confederate soldiers. Meanwhile it is a patriotic duty to come as near to this result as possible.
The upheaval of 1861 was primarily due to an econmical and social force. At that day the nature of this force was intelligently understood only by a few. The unfolding of events during the last fifty years has rendered it quite easy of comprehension. Yet it is rather curious, in view of the interminable literature of the war period, that there is still so little effort to get below the surface and away from the cobweb of partisan politics.
The Thirteen Colonies of 1776 were settled mainly by British people, and their laws followed British models. They gave their allegiance to the British monarch, and to a very limited extent they acknowledged the supremacy of the British leg- islature. But as between themselves they were independent nations. As a rule they were founded on different principles, each colony attracting its own class of immigrants. Conse- quently the attitude of one colony toward another was more or less distrustful and jealous. The people of different states knew little of each other, because roads were poor, travel very limited, newspapers few, and the mail service crude. Now it is a stubborn impulse of human nature to hold a prejudice against those who are born elsewhere, simply because of the very fact of alien birth and a perceptible dif- ference in rearing. This feeling existed among the counties of England, the stranger being looked upon as an enemy and perhaps pelted with brickbats. This feeling existed among the colonies. In spite of the liberalizing influences of our modern times, it still exists among the American people, even within the confines of the same state or county.
Nevertheless, the colonies being British, there was a cer- tain bond of sympathy between them. The blundering pol- icy of the home government drove them into a common attitude of armed resistance. But when they formed a league in 1776 they were American in a geographic and not a na- tional sense. The sense of a united nationality had had but the slightest opportunity to develop. It was a feeling which had to start from the very bottom. It would have been a miracle had it come at one leap into mature proportions. Even until 1789 there was no true central government. The Articles of Confederation were nothing more than an agree- ment to live together as cooperative neighbors, each state yielding the merest trifle of its sovereign powers. The Con- tinental Congress had only a shadow of the powers of the Federal Congress. It could not even levy taxes. It was no more than a central advisory committee representing the state governments.
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Self-interest compelled the states to cling together. The union of 1776 being a rope of sand, a stronger union took its place a dozen years later. Whether the new government continued to stand for a league of states or whether it cre- ated an infant nation, is not explicitly laid down by the framers of the Constitution of 1787. It was in fact an experi- ment. There was no ready-made pattern, ancient or modern, which the framers might follow. Had they chosen to estab- lish a monarchy they would have found precedent enough. But a republic of republics was something new under the sun. The framers put themselves on record as declaring for a "more perfect union." The complete answer was left for posterity to determine in its own way.
The thirteen states entered into this firmer union much as thirteen business men might join in a partnership under a written agreement. They thought it a mere matter of course that the individual state might on extremity exercise the busi- ness partner's privilege of unhindered withdrawal. Washing- ton urged his people to "discountenance even a suspicion that it (the Union) can in any event be abandoned." Notwithstand- ing this wise counsel it was one thing for the Americans of his day to call themselves a nation and another thing for them to feel that they were a nation. Just so long there- fore, as local conditions might cause a state to hold to the primary view that the Union was no more than a league of sovereign commonwealths, the opinion that a state might voluntarily go out was sure to retain vitality in that very commonwealth. There was furthermore the constant possi- sibility that some member might see fit to go out. As a question of fact this view of the matter was put forward at one time or another by everyone of the original states. An amusing phase of the question is that whenever a state talked secession for itself, the other states would set up a chorus of indignant disapproval. This very circumstance proves an instinctive feeling among the Americans of that period that their land is designed by nature as a unit among the countries of the world and that the pathway to a genuine sense of nationality should be kept open.
The four states east of the Hudson were much alike in their inhabitants, institutions, and industries, yet not so har- monious among themselve as is commonly supposed. The six states south of the Susquehanna were much alike in having a large slave element and in being exclusively devoted to ag- riculture. The three Middle States differed from New Eng- land, differed from the South, differed from one another. They drew toward the Northeastern group, because sharing the same tendencies in commerce, manufacture, and local insti-
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tions. Thus the states crystallized into a Northern section and a Southern section, a difference appearing in tempera- ment, in social ideals and usages, and in industrial methods. But for a while there was no especial divergence in party politics. The two sections were like two families whose ways are not the same and who have little social intercourse, yet who can live side by side as good neighbors, provided each is willing to recognize true worth in the other and to view the points of difference in a spirit of courteous forbearance.
Something like this was measurably true until 1830, and especially until 1820. The North did not like slavery and in that section it soon disappeared. Its opposition was not pre- eminently a moral question. Many of its slaves were sold in the South and Northern slave-ships brought more negroes from Africa. Thus the North was not yet meddlesome to- ward slavery in the South. On the other hand the South revered the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers and was as proud of Bunker Hill as of Yorktown. That section regretted its inherited burden of slavery, and the more northern of the Southern states were casting about for some prudent way of getting rid of the handicap. All Americans unless, in South Carolina and Georgia, looked for the early disappearance of servitude.
Had the number of states remained thirteen, it is altogether probable they would have lived up to Washington's advice. It is quite as probable the Union would have remained a con- federation to this day. There were men who did not expect or desire an increase in the number of states. But the number did not remain thirteen, and that made all the dif- ference in the world. It was the influence of the new states that gave a new phase to the bond of union.
The new America west of the Alleghanies was not the same as the old America east of those mountains. It was a colony of the Seaboard, just as much as the Seaboard had been a bunch of colonies from Europe. Along the coast there was a strong fear that the West would repeat the story of 1776 and assert its own independence. There was also a willingness to see it do so. The Alleghany rampart gave force to these lines of the poet:
"Mountains interposed
Make enemies of nations who had else,
Like kindred drops, been mingled into one."
Unlike the Seaboard the West was by nature a single stick instead of a bundle of thirteen sticks of unestablished dura- bility. It was settled by people from all the states and was homogeneous throughout. The Ordinance of 1787 created
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the Territory Northwest of the Ohio and recognized that the Union had a partnership interest in it. According to the style of American thought in that day this great region should, as a colony of the Thirteen Colonies, have been ad- mitted to their sisterhood as one state notwithstanding its size. Of the five states carved out of it not one entered the Union after having had a previous career of its own. The only sound reason for five states rather than one was the greater convenience of administration in a day that knew no railroads or telegraphs. Between states like New York and New Jersey there was a natural difference, and the boundary line meant something. Between states like Ohio and Indiana there was scarcely more than an artificial difference, and at the start the boundary line meant almost nothing. To the Western man the boundless plains threaded by navigable rivers, all converging into one main artery, were an irresist- able hint to a oneness of American feeling and American na- tionality.
Until after the slavery agitation subsequent to 1830, Ken- tucky and Tennessee classed themselves with the states north of the Ohio and not with those of the South. And yet Ken- tucky was a colony of Virginia and Tennessee was a colony of North Carolina. Vermont and Texas were independent states prior to their admission. Louisiana, a French colony, and Florida and California, Spanish colonies, had a slight de- gree of provincial independence until purchased with the money of the whole American nation. Maine was once a part of Massachusetts, and West Virginia was once a part of Virginia. The remaining 26 new states were carved out of the national domain according to considerations of conven- ience, although in form Alabama and Mississippi were colo- nies of Georgia, just as Kentucky was a colony of Virginia. Of the 46 states 31 were created by the legislative authority of the general government and entered the Union on such terms as that government saw fit to impose.
By 1860 the West-North was nearly equal in population to the East-North, and there were well-worn lines of travel and trade between these sub-sections. And as the sentiment of the West was national from the very start this feeling could not otherwise than strongly influence the North Atlantic States. Another force in the same direction was the large Irish and German immigration in the 40's and 50's. Very little of this inflow went South, because the South did not in- vite free labor. Otherwise the foreigner took little notice of state lines. He beheld only the nation.
Since Alabama and Mississippi are an extension of the low- land South, the view of the Union held in that region was
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transplanted to these new states. It remained nearly as strong here as in the older South, because from their very situation and their social and business relations the national- izing influence exerted by these states was of a sectional and not a general character. A similar remark is also true of Louisiana and Texas. The Gulf States were therefore dis- tinctly Southern in sentiment, though not quite uninfluenced by the West.
When the Federal government went into operation in 1789, the North and South were about evenly balanced in area, population, and wealth. After 70 years, the territories being left out of the question, there was still no great difference in area. But in the number of inhabitants the free states were ahead in the proportion of 19 to 12. In still other respects there was a significant contrast.
The North was a land of active and diversified industry and it owned nearly every ship of the United States. The absence of a slave class prevented manual labor from being held as a badge of inferiority. There were short as well as long lines of railway. Free schools were universal, and by far the greater share of books and magazines were by Northern publishers. The structure of society had be- come more and more democratic ever since the Revolution. There was no governing class. Wherever the township sys- tem of local government prevailed, the taxpayers of the township transacted its business in open meetings. The nu- merous cities and towns and the active industrial and com- mercial interests threw the people into a broad contact with one another and made them alert and pushing. There was thus a radicalism in the Northern character which made the Northern man quite inclined to adopt new ideas whether for better or worse.
The South could also make a good showing in wealth, al- though its capital was chiefly in lands and slaves. The tilled area produced a yearly surplus of $300,000,000, but in a way that was ruining the soil. The mines and the forests were neglected, and mills and factories were few because slave labor was not suited to them. Cities and towns were few and very small, and hence the railways were almost exclus- ively through lines. Free schools were not much in favor and there were many illiterate people. Yet higher education was well attended to, although the college training of the Southern men was largely sought in the North. Industrially the South was very dependent, while the North, owing to its ships and its workshops, was quite independent.
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