Andrew Carnegie, “The Upward March of Labor,” in Problems Today: Wealth, Labor, Socialism (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1908, 1933), 43-46.
[Carnegie, the famous wealthy industrialist, wrote this piece 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.