Again, when it was discovered that, helped by some refrigerating process, we could send fresh meat to Europe, the whole country arose, cheered and patted itself upon the back. Now, surely the whole world would be at our feet, for were we not feeding Englishmen, Frenchmen and Germans cheaper than any of their home producers could do it? Our self-satisfaction increased when it was discovered that live cattle also could be sent over to Europe in immense quantities and pay a handsome profit in spite of occasional losses due to storms and injudicious loading of the vessels which carried the animals. About this time ranches began to cover all ground in the far West that was fit at all for grazing, and the estates, nominally the property of those who managed them, came to be of baronial extent. But what America could do, Australia began to think she also could do, and even South Africa was not averse to experimenting in the same direction. We still send a great deal of meat to Europe, but ranch property is not as much in demand as once it was. There are ranches now to be had for the taking, but the takers are few.
Just before the ranch fever began, we struck oil—struck it in such immense quantities, and also found men so competent to make it fit for general use, that petroleum in some of its forms promised to be the leading export article of the United States. There was not a civilized quarter of the world in which one couldn’t find the American kerosene oil can. Our oil still continues to go abroad in immense quantities, but the fortunes which have been made upon it have stimulated prospectors all over the world, and, as it is known that oil is not restricted to any single hemisphere, or even grand division of the world, the prospects begin to look rather dismal for America retaining supremacy in this particular article of commerce. The Asiatic oil wells are far more valuable than ours and are worked at less expense, and the supply can be distributed in Europe quite as easily and cheaply as that from the American wells and refineries. Evidently we can’t afford to depend upon oil alone. Large fortunes have been made upon it, but there is an old song which says: “The mill can never grind with the water that is passed.” We need something new to keep us at the fore. What it is to be has not yet been discovered.
Some few unfulfilled expectations of this kind, some great commercial disappointments, are probably necessary to divest us of part of the overweening self-confidence which is peculiar to the inhabitants of all new countries. Simple and unquestioning belief in manifest destiny and all that sort of talk has quite a stimulating effect at times, but it also is likely to lull people into a false sense of security. It already has done so to a large extent in the United States. We have been so well satisfied that we were superior in intelligence and resources to any other land on the face of the earth that we have been inattentive to some of our greater interests. The shipping of raw materials of any kind is a reputable division of industry, but it is not the highest result at which a nation should aim, nor should any amount of success at it blind the people to their greater duties, responsibilities and opportunities.
On the other hand, no other nation of the world has so much as we to be thankful for and to encourage them. We have no bad neighbors who are strong enough for us to be afraid of, and all the greater powers of the world are far enough away to take very little interest in us, unless we annoy them in some way. We do not have to squander the energies and sometimes the life-blood of our race by putting all our young men into armies and navies and teaching them distrust, suspicion, cruelty and the spirit of rapine. Our taxes are heavy, but, on the other hand, our national debt, once so enormous, is being reduced with such rapidity that soon we will show the world the astonishing spectacle of a great nation without a debt. There is nowhere else in the world where a person with money to invest and desiring it to remain absolutely secure, no matter at how small a rate of interest, cannot quickly obtain the securities of his own government for his gold or notes, but here there is very little encouragement any longer to buy the national bonds, for they are being redeemed at a rate which makes it almost impossible for any one to retain them with certainty for a long time as a permanent investment. Holders of the debts of other countries expect never to have their principal redeemed; they are satisfied to get interest perpetually, as undoubtedly they will unless the debts are repudiated. There is very little possibility of any foreign country of the first class ever discharging all of its financial obligations so far as principal is concerned, unless it provokes a fight with the United States and holds our cities for ransom. If we must, and certain economists say we must, continue to extract a large amount of money from the pockets of the people, we will at least have the satisfaction of seeing it spent for something besides dead horses.
We also are reducing the proportion of our uneducated and ignorant classes at a rapid and gratifying rate. Other countries are working in this direction with more skill, thoughtfulness and accurate appliances, but, on the other hand, they have to contend against the apathy of a large portion of the population, an article which, happily, in this country is of very small proportions. Besides the vast mass of uneducated beings who have come to us as immigrants, we have also the entire colored population of the South, but schools are built so rapidly and all classes of our people, even the most ignorant of blacks, are so ambitious to be as good as any other class, that it is not at all difficult to get children to school and to persuade parents to take a hearty interest in education. Whatever may be our faults in the future, ignorance promises not to be one of them.
There is another side to this subject, and one which cannot too quickly begin to turn the thoughtful portion of the public. “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” is a sentiment which has frequently been quoted. The inherent right of every citizen to reach the highest office of the government has so stimulated ambition that almost any one is willing to try for the position whether fit or not, and the same statement holds good regarding every other place of trust or profit in public or private life. Half-educated men, men of almost no education, have brought this country to great peril again and again. Their numbers are constantly increasing. We must be on guard against them. Misdirected activity is worse than no activity at all, but there is something worse than that, and it is the ceaseless ambition of men whose conscience does not keep pace with their intelligence. The school supplies intelligence, but conscience is something which cannot be made to order, and no institution under charge and supervision of a government can be expected to supply it. The nations of the Old World have attempted to do it for centuries through the medium of the church, but good and noble and self-sacrificing though the church has been at many times and in many lands, its ministrations cannot be forced upon those who are unwilling to receive them.
The only available substitute is a high standard of public morality. This is voiced by the press, by the pulpit and in private life; but, unfortunately, when it reaches the domain of politics, it immediately becomes confused and enfeebled. A higher standard must be set by parties and maintained by the leaders and voters and adherents of those parties. The hypocrisy of all political utterances has been proved over and over again during the past few years in the United States. No man of honesty and high purpose can help blushing for shame when he reviews the broken promises of his own political organization, no matter what it may be. “Promises, like pie-crusts, are made to be broken,” says the practical politician, and while for three years and six months of every four the respectable citizen protests against such shameful disregard of public and private morals, in the remaining six months he is likely to give his tacit assent and his active vote to the party with which he has always acted in politics, regardless of who may be its leaders and what may be its actual intentions. Until both parties line down this disgrace and dishonor there will be a weak joint in our armor and our enemies will sooner or later discover a way of piercing it. “Righteousness exalteth a nation,” says an authority which most Americans regard with great respect—except during a Presidential campaign.
The stability and peace of our nation should be the great concern of our people, and as there is not a private virtue which may not be influential in this direction, each individual has it in his power to further the great purpose of the community. All the other nations envy us—envy us our form of government, our freedom from conscription, large armies, privileged classes, vested rights, ugly neighbors, churchly impositions and hopeless debts. But we can maintain all these features of superiority only by maintaining an honest and intelligent government. We cannot do it by being blind, unreasoning partizans of any political organization. To be a “strong Democrat” or “strong Republican” is often to be contemptibly weak as an American. Loyalty to party often means disloyalty to the nation. Party platforms are seldom framed according to the will of the majority; they are framed by the leaders, and often for the leaders’ own personal purposes. In all other lands where constitutional government prevails the intelligent classes sway from one party to the other, according to their opinion of measures proposed. Loyalty is accorded to the nation first, the party afterwards. The party is regarded as a means, not an end; it must be so regarded here, before we can rise to the level of our opportunities, and the number and greatness of these opportunities make this duty more imperative here, even for selfish reasons, than anywhere else. It is peculiarly stupid and disgraceful that any intelligent American should be able to say, with Sir Joseph Porter, in “Pinafore:”
“I always voted at my party’s call,
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.”
No party should be a voter’s ruler; it is his servant, and if it is lazy, dishonest or does not obey him, it should be disciplined or changed.