The Upward March of Labor
Andrew Carnegie
[Reprinted from Problems Today: Wealth, Labor,
Socialism, published by Doubleday (Garden City, NJ), 1908,
pp.43-46; written in 1885]
The old nations of the earth creep on a snail's pace; the Republic
thunders past with the rush of the express. The United States, the
growth of a single century, has already reached the foremost rank
among nations, and is destined soon to out-distance all others in the
race. In population, in wealth, in annual savings, and in public
credit; in freedom from debt, in agriculture, and in manufactures,
America already leads the civilized world. ...
Into the distant future of this giant nation we need not seek to
peer; but if we cast a glance forward, as we have done backward, for
only fifty years, and assumed that in that short interval no serious
change will occur, the astounding fact startles us that in 1935, fifty
years from now, when many in manhood will still be living, one hundred
and eighty millions of English-speaking republicans will exist under
one flag and possess more than two hundred and fifty thousand millions
of dollars, or fifty thousand millions sterling of national wealth.
Eighty years ago the whole of America and Europe did not contain so
many people; and, if Europe and America continue their normal growth,
it will be little more than another eighty years ere the mighty
Republic may boast as many loyal citizens as all the rulers of Europe
combined, for before the year 1980 Europe and America will each have a
population of about six hundred millions.
The causes which have led to the rapid growth and aggrandizement of
this latest addition to the family of nations constitute one of the
most interesting problems in the social history of mankind. What has
brought about such stupendous results ? so unparalleled a development
of a nation within so brief a period! The most important factors in
this problem are three: the ethnic character of the people; the
topographical and climatic conditions under which they developed, and
the influence of political institutions founded upon the equality of
the citizen.
Certain writers in the past have maintained that the ethnic type of a
people has less influence upon its growth as a nation than the
conditions of life under which it is developing. The modern
ethnologist knows better. We have only to imagine what American would
be to-day if she had fallen in the beginning, into the hands of any
other people than the colonizing British, to see how vitally important
is this question of race. America was indeed fortunate in the seed
planted upon her soil. With the exception of a few Dutch and French it
was wholly British; and ... the American of to-day remains true to
this noble strain and is four-fifths British.? The special aptitude of
this race for colonization, its vigor and enterprise, and its capacity
for governing, although brilliantly manifested in all parts of the
world, have never been shown to such advantage as in America. Freed
here from the pressure of feudal institutions no longer fitted to
their present development, and freed also from the dominion of the
upper classes, which have kept the people at home from effective
management of affairs and sacrificed the nation's interest for their
own, as is the nature of classes, these masses of the lower ranks of
Britons, called upon to found a new state, have proved themselves
possessors of a positive genius for political administration.
The second, and perhaps equally important factor in the problem of
the rapid advancement of this branch of the British race, is the
superiority of the conditions under which it has developed. The home
which has fallen to its lot, a domain more magnificent than has
cradled any other race in the history of the world, presents no
obstructions to unity to the thorough amalgamation of its dwellers,
North, South, East, and West, into one homogeneous mass for the
conformation of the American continent differs in important respects
from that of every other great division of the globe. In Europe the
Alps occupy a central position, forming on each side watersheds of
rivers which flow into opposite seas. In Asia the Himalaya, the Hindu
Kush, and the Altai Mountains divide the continent, rolling from their
sides many great rivers which pour their floods into widely separated
oceans. But in North American the mountains rise up on each coast, and
from them the land slopes gradually into great central plains, forming
an immense basin where the rivers flow together in one valley,
offering to commerce many thousand miles of navigable streams. The map
thus proclaims the unity of North America, for in this great central
basin, three million square miles in extent, free from impassable
rivers of mountain barriers great enough to hinder free intercourse,
political integration is a necessity and consolidation a certainty.
...
The unity of the American people is further powerfully promoted by
the foundation upon which the political structure rests, the equality
of the citizen. There is not one shred of privilege to be met with
anywhere in all the laws.? One man?s right is every man?s right.? ...
No ranks, no titles, no hereditary dignities, and therefore no
classes. Suffrage is universal, and votes are of equal weight.
Representatives are paid, and political usefulness thereby thrown open
to all. Thus there is brought about a community of interests and aims
which a Briton, accustomed to monarchical and aristocratic
institutions, dividing the people into classes with separate
interests, aims, thoughts, and feelings, can only with difficulty
understand.
The free common school system of the land is probably, after all, the
greatest single power in the unifying process which is producing the
new American race. Through the crucible of a good common English
education, furnished free by the State, pass the various racial
elements children of Irishmen, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and
Swedes, side by side with the native American, all to be fused into
one, in language, in thought, in feeling, and in patriotism. The Irish
boy loses his brogue, and the German child learns English. The
sympathies suited to the feudal systems of Europe, which they inherit
from their fathers, pass off as dross, leaving behind the pure gold of
the only noble political creed: ?All men are created free and equal.
Taught now to live and work for the common weal, and not for the
maintenance of a royal family or an overbearing aristocracy, not for
the continuance of a social system which ranks them beneath an
arrogant class of drones, children of Russian and German serfs, of
Irish evicted tenants, Scotch crofters, and other victims of feudal
tyranny, are transmuted into republican Americans, and are made one in
love for a country which provides equal rights and privileges for all
her children. There is no class so intensely patriotic, so wildly
devoted to the Republic as the naturalized citizen and his child, for
little does the native-born citizen know of the values of rights which
have never been denied. Only the man born abroad, like myself, under
institutions which insult him at his birth, can know the full meaning
of Republicanism . ...
It is these causes which render possible the growth of a great
homogeneous nation alike in race, language, literature, interest,
patriotism an empire of such overwhelming power and proportions as to
require neither army nor navy to ensure its safety, and a people so
educated and advanced as to value the victories of peace.
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