Englanders it offered a chance to practice their own religion under a form of local self-government. To the Virginians it gave increased economic opportunities. It gave a new start and a new chance to make good to the debtor, the religious non-conformist, the ambitious, and the man who had transgressed against society. At this early date and even after colonial social life had had a chance to develop, there was a greater measure of equality in the new world than elsewhere. The first settlers were located in small communities. The establishing of a settlement required hard work and few were exempt. With a small number of persons all interested in making a livelihood and in protecting themselves against hostile Indians, there was little chance for class divisions. Even after the population increased, dangers and hardships lessened, and moneyed and propertied groups developed, there were not such wide class divisions as existed in Europe and there was no nobility. Indeed the desire to prevent the development of such a class in America was so strong that it was expressly forbidden by the Constitution.

The Influence of the Land. The leveling of the classes was aided and maintained by the great amounts of land. This enabled the ambitious man to become a property owner at little expense other than his willingness to contribute his physical labor to the task of clearing the land and building his home. The land in fact formed the basis of that equality of opportunity for which this country has been idealized. It could be obtained at little or no expense. Attempts to charge other than nominal fees were ultimately thwarted by the fact that immigrants went where the land was cheap and conditions of land tenure favorable.

During the time of the Revolution, the conflicting claims of the thirteen original states to the territory west of the Alleghany mountains induced them to effect a compromise. By common consent this vast expanse of woodland and prairie stretching from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi and from the Spanish province of Florida to the Great Lakes was to become the public domain of the federal government. The United States later acquired by purchase and conquest possessions extending from ocean to ocean and encompassing, exclusive of Alaska, some 3,000,000 square miles.

At first the new nation looked upon its land as a means of ridding itself of debt, and for several years it was sold in great tracts to wealthy companies and individuals. This policy worked a hardship on the actual settlers who were compelled to buy more land than they wanted at prices higher than they could afford to

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pay. The system was gradually changed and finally abandoned. The price of land was lowered and the amount which any individual was required to take up was reduced. The actual settler, his interests and capacity to pay became the first consideration of the government. In 1852, the Free Soil Party included the issue of free land in its party declaration of principles. After ten years of agitation, this principle was embodied into law. The Homestead Act of 1862 provided that any citizen who cultivated his land and resided upon it for a term of years should be given a title to it practically free of charge. Under this law large amounts of land were taken up and settled.

Influence of the Frontier. The ease with which land was acquired in the new world served as a constant incentive to further settlement. Up to the early eighties America was never without its frontier communities where conditions were primitive. The frontiersmen, like the early colonial settlers, were grouped in small settlements and were engaged in a type of work which precluded class divisions, encouraged democracy, and promoted the physically and mentally fit to positions of leadership. These frontier settlements served constantly to stimulate the ideals of self-government, of liberty, and equality of opportunity. Here the people, widely separated from the seat of government, actually governed themselves. Here every man who was physically fit had an equal opportunity with every other man. Here a man felt a greater sense of liberty, though his personal freedom was actually strictly limited by the laws of nature. The reaction of these frontier fringes of society upon the more settled American life was salutary. These cruder, freer, and more democratic groups kept American ideas from crystallizing and helped to develop the nation's ideals.

Influence of Education. In these settlements as in the more civilized communities, the ideal of equality of opportunity was pursued in the developing educational policy. This desire for education can be traced back to the early Puritans who sought for religious reasons to provide at least a minimum of instruction for all children. In 1647, the general court of Massachusetts issued an order which laid down the basis of the common school system of the province. This order projected the essentials of our modern public school system—a primary school to teach the rudiments of education, a secondary school to prepare for the university, where training could be received in the higher branches of learning.

Through such a system, the amount of illiteracy is steadily

being reduced in the United States. The great mass of the inhabitants receive at least a working knowledge. The bulk of children attend the public rather than the private schools. The intermingling in work and play of many different classes and nationalities serves to promote that democracy of spirit for which our country stands. This same spirit is evidenced in the higher schools of learning. There are many ways in which the ambitious student can earn his way through the university. He suffers no loss of social prestige because he is less fortunate than his wealthier comrades. But despite the opportunities enabling the impecunious to attain a college training, it is actually only the minority who are sufficiently free of family responsibility or have the time, money, or ambition to graduate from the high schools. It is a still smaller group which attends the universities. The people in practice have never enjoyed equality of opportunity in education, without which they cannot have equality of opportunity in economic, social, or political life. Education advances a man's chances for promotion in business, industry, and politics. It is only through education that the people are fitted to govern themselves. It is only through equal educational opportunities that a reasonable measure of the ideal of equality of opportunity can be obtained. A free education extending through the university and a wide franchise including practically all white men and women do not meet the issue. While great inequalities in wealth exist, the majority will be unable to enjoy a higher education. While educational and economic barriers stand in the way, there can be no practical working out, even for the mentally fit, of the ideal democracy, a government of, for, and by the people. For the mentally unfit of which there are large numbers the question is still more complex. Neither education nor a more equitable division of property will rouse them to intelligent participation in public life and make the ideals of self-government, liberty, and equality of opportunity effective for them.

Influence of Inequality in Wealth. The decay of the ideal of equality of opportunity as it affects the economic life of the people was accompanied by the gradual disappearance of free land. Up to the closing decade of the nineteenth century, land continued to be plentiful and the United States was predominantly an agricultural nation. Since that time, it has been more difficult and more expensive to secure good farm land. The fourteenth census was the first census to show the majority of people resident in urban rather than in rural communities.

The former abundance of free land and the lack of capital at

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low rates of interest account for the slow development of the industrial system and its attendant problems in this country. There was no serious labor unrest, for the dissatisfied worker could always go on the land. The early industries were small and the laborer and employer were in close personal touch. While labor unions existed and strikes were not unknown, they were comparatively speaking sporadic affairs. It was not until the period after the Civil War that business began to develop on a large scale. Consolidations took place; corporations and trusts were formed. There was a greater demand for labor. The abundance of free land was bound to be exhausted in time. By 1890 the land no longer offered the same solution to the restless worker. There was less personal touch between employer and employee. Property was less dispersed among the people and was becoming concentrated in the hands of the few. A great laboring class was developing and with it the need and desire for strong labor unions to offset with numbers the wealth and power of the employing group. Strikes and labor disturbances of all kinds were more prevalent. The dividing line between the employing class and the laboring class, once faint and easy to cross, was now becoming distinct and served as a barrier to progress. The opportunities of the two groups were not in any sense of the word equal. The group which controlled the nation's resources and wealth also had a dominant voice in the control of the nation itself. Yet class control, whether by capital or labor, is incompatible with the three great ideals, self-government, liberty, equality of opportunity. To maintain these ideals, some way must be found to secure a more equitable division of the nation's wealth and to devise a scheme by which the people and their group interests can be more effectively represented in the political life of the

nation.

THE HAVEN OF THE OPPRESSED

It is these very ideals, endangered by the new economic problems confronting the nation, which have inspired the bulk of our immigration. America to the immigrant was the land of opportunity. Here he expected to advance his economic interests, to attain a wide measure of that freedom for which man has ever striven, to have a share in the government of his adopted country. Above all America came to be symbolized as the haven of the oppressed. Here the Separatists, Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, and other religious groups

found freedom to practice their own religions without oppression. True, the early settlers were not always tolerant of persons professing a different religion from that of the group, but such persons could establish communities of their own. Later a wide measure of religious tolerance was granted in America with the result that the religiously oppressed have ever here sought refuge. Political and economic oppression were responsible for two great waves of migration occurring in the nineteenth century. The Irish, to avoid starvation, were compelled to leave their native land. The Germans, dissatisfied with the arbitrary government in their own country, came here in large numbers after the unsuccessful revolutions of the thirties and forties. For years the Jews migrated to escape the oppression which for racial reasons they were forced to endure in the old world. The more recent immigration from southern and eastern Europe is animated largely by the economic need or desire to seek better conditions and greater opportunities in America, the land of opportunity. The idea that America was the haven of the oppressed, originating in the motives which made many of the early colonists seek the new world, dominated our immigration policy for many years. It was not until 1882 that Congress realized the necessity of abridging this ideal to protect the people already here. At that time convicts, lunatics, idiots, and persons likely to become public charges were excluded. Since that time a long list of other undesirables have been added to the debarred classes. While America was still the haven of the oppressed, it was necessary that the oppressed be sane, healthy, moral individuals. In 1917 a further restriction in the form of an illiteracy test was imposed, but the traditional ideal was protected by express exemption of persons coming here to escape religious or political oppression. In 1918 our sentiment toward our foreign elements suffered a change. Engaged in a great war, we feared a possible danger from the large groups of aliens resident in this country. The result was the passage of the Deportation Act of 1918 which subjected many persons to deportation because of their political views. A paradoxical situation was thus created. America, the haven of the oppressed, was ejecting individuals who must seek a haven elsewhere. This anti-foreign sentiment was further exemplified in the Immigration Law of 1921. While this law was passed mainly for economic reasons, the rather wide-spread distrust of radicals and of foreigners, as potential radicals, was one of the factors in its passage. With this act our immigration policy became one of restriction rather than of selection.