Our Common Country/Chapter 14

I have been thinking of the wonderful development of the Northwest. We take things so readily for granted that we never stop to think what made us what we are. In the brief time we have been building this wonderful country of ours, we have been working to the perfection of a new civilization and a habitation and a condition which are the pride of all Americans. And it is a very wonderful thing to contemplate how much we have accomplished in less than a century; and when you stop to think about it, it is all worked out with patience and continued endeavor in the right direction. Nothing great is brought about by the wave of one's hand. ​You can not have miracles in the development of a country, and yet in this wonderful lands of ours, with the Constitution only a hundred and thirty-three years old and our Western civilization less than a century, we have outstripped every other civilization in the world. That is a tribute to American accomplishment. And when I look back upon it, I find myself asking—Why must we be so impatient with the continual working out of the processes of human advancement? It takes time and understanding and an abiding faith to do this. So I want you all to have faith in this country of ours.

I am reminded of the thought, which has oftentimes been in my mind, that there is no audience to which I more delight to talk than that which can be assembled in a village community. I grew up in a village of six hundred, and I know something of the democracy, of the simplicity, of the confidence in—aye, better ​yet, of the reverence for government, and the fidelity to law and its enforcement, as it exists in the small community. I do not believe that anywhere in the world there is so perfect a democracy as in the village. You know in the village we know everybody else's business. I grew up in such a community, and I have often referred to it as a fine illustration of the opportunities of American life.

There is no social strata or society requirement in the village. About everybody starts equal. And in the village where I was born the blacksmith's son and the cobbler's son and the minister's son and the storekeeper's son all had just the same chance in the opportunities of this America of ours. I wonder if it would interest you if I told you about what happened to some of the boys with whom I went to school? I like to refer to it because it is the finest proof in the world of the equality of American opportunity to ​the sons of this Republic. In the class when I was a boy there was Ralph. Well, Ralph was a bruiser among the boys and I would have picked him out for a prizefighter. Man grown, I looked him up. I had not seen him for thirty years, and instead of finding him a pugilistically inclined citizen, I found him at the head of the bank in the village where we grew up, as peaceful and able as any man in the community. Then there was Wheeler. If there was any boy in our crowd who started with greater advantage in money, he was the fellow. He had inherited three thousand dollars—and that was an awful amount of money in those days. But Wheeler went the wrong way, and came to failure. Then there was Frank. Frank was the village carpenter's son; but Frank to-day is one of the great captains of industry in Chicago, and before the World War advanced salaries and compensation, he was getting twenty-five ​thousand dollars a year. A Village Boy! Then there was Ed, the cobbler's son. He wanted to be a geologist. He had once heard a geologist lecture. So he started to study geology, and in order to study to more advantage, because his father was not able to send him to college, he became a Pullman car conductor, to study as he worked. What do you think became of Ed, aspiring to become a geologist? Ed turned out to be a preacher and he is a great preacher this day. And so I might run on—but I must tell you about another one. Let us say that his name was Charlie. He was the local grocer's son. Well, you would not have thought he had any special advantage but his father loved him and sent him to college. He is one of the great lawyers of Ohio to-day and he measures his wealth in large figures and he never cheated anybody out of a cent. Then there was, let us say, Henry. Henry was the brightest boy of his class. The ​teacher always pointed him out as the pride of the school. He was the one to whom we always had to look as an example of youthful brilliancy in the village. We were all envious of him. What do you suppose became of this brightest luminary of them all? I found him in a village, the janitor of his lodge, and in spite of his less important achievements he was the happiest one of the lot. What is the greatest thing in life, my countrymen? Happiness. And there is more happiness in the American village than any other place on the face of the earth.

So I like to preach the gospel of understanding in America, the utter abolition of class and every thought of it; the maintenance of American institutions, the things we have inherited, and above all continued freedom for the United States, without dictation or direction from anybody else in all the world.