Jeniffer electronic book

The American democracy has confidently believed in the fatal prosperity
enjoyed by the people under the American system. In the confidence of
that belief it has promised to Americans a substantial satisfaction of
their economic needs; and it has made that promise an essential part of
the American national idea. The promise has been measurably fulfilled
hitherto, because the prodigious natural resources of a new continent
were thrown open to anybody with the energy to appropriate them. But
those natural resources have now in large measure passed into the
possession of individuals, and American statesmen can no longer count
upon them to satisfy the popular hunger for economic independence. An
ever larger proportion of the total population of the country is taking
to industrial occupations, and an industrial system brings with it much
more definite social and economic classes, and a diminution of the
earlier social homogeneity. The contemporary wage-earner is no longer
satisfied with the economic results of being merely an American citizen.


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