man was to have an equal
chance with every other, burned brightly for a little while in various
parts of the world at different times, and flickered out. They broke
forth with the fury of an explosion in France during the Revolution and
in Russia during the Red Terror. They have smoldered quietly in some
places and had just begun to break through with a steady, even flame.
But America struck the match and gathered the wood to start her own
fire. She is the first country in the world which was founded especially
to promote individual freedom and the brotherhood of mankind. She had,
to change the figure slightly, a blue-print to start with and she has
been building ever since.

Her material came from the eastern hemisphere. The nations there at the
time when the United States was settled were at different stages of
their development. Some were vigorous with youth, some were in the
height of their glory, and some were dying because the descendants of
the men who had made them great were futile and incapable. These nations
were different in race and religion, in thought, language, traditions,
and temperament. When they were not quarreling with each other, they
were busy with domestic squabbles. They had kept this up for centuries
and were at it when the settlers landed at Jamestown and later when the
_Mayflower_ came to Plymouth Rock. Yet, with a cheerful disregard of
the past and an almost sublime hope in the future they expected to live
happily ever after they crossed the Atlantic Ocean. Needless to add,
they did not.

Accident of place cannot change a man's color (though it may bleach it a
shade lighter or tan it a shade darker), nor his religion nor any of the
other racial and inherent qualities which are the result of slow
centuries of development. And the same elements which made men fight in
the old countries set them against each other in the new. Most of the
antagonisms were and are the result of prejudices, foolish narrow
prejudices, which, nevertheless, must be beaten down before we can
expect genuine courtesy.

Further complications arose, and are still arising, from the fact that
we did not all get here at the same time. Those who came first have
inevitably and almost unconsciously formulated their own system of
manners. Wherever there is community life and a certain amount of
leisure there is a standard of cultivated behavior. And America, young
as she is, has already accumulated traditions of her own.

I