lution made state and national governments, which could provide for the general welfare; the Federal Convention enlarged and strengthened the Union; the spirit of union saved the government from destruction by the Civil War, and has brought the two sections together again.

Liberty, equality, and fraternity are all means to one end the supremacy of law and order as the protector of the individual. Perhaps the greatest lesson of American history is that the only safe and sure way to bring about changes. and reforms is by an appeal to the moral sense of the nation, by the long course of political discussion, by ballots rather than by bullets. As Lincoln put it in his first inaugural: "Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate future of the people. Is there any better or equal hope in the world?" Ours be Lowell's pledge of patriotism:

Works, II

15

topics

(1) Why do Americans move so freely from state to state? Suggestive (2) Why has the United States grown so rapidly in population? (3) Why have the Indians lost their importance? (4) Whence came the American ideas of personal liberty? (5) Whence came the American ideas of religious toleration? (6) Whence came the American ideas of freedom of opinion and speech? (7) Why do American workmen accept new machinery? (8) Why is American railroad management superior to foreign? (9) Why can not a man contract to make himself a slave? (10) Why does the government come before any religious, social, or business organization in its right to the allegiance of Americans? (11) Why is the suffrage so broadly extended in America? (12) What are

Search topics

the good things about party government? (13) What are the defects of party government? (14) Why is city government harder to carry on well than state or national government?

(15) How many of the people of the United States are of English, Scotch, or Welsh descent? (16) Number of children educated in private schools. (17) Number of children educated in church schools. (18) Picketing in strikes. (19) Sympathetic strikes. (20) Use of the boycott by workmen. (21) Use of the black list by employers. (22) Limitations on the right of free speech. (23) What limitations are there on the suffrage?

Geography Secondary authorities

Sources

See maps, pp. 561, 567.

REFERENCES

C. D. Wright, Practical Sociology; James Bryce, American Commonwealth; Alexander Johnston, American Politics; A. B. Hart, Actual Government; Emlin McClain, Constitutional Law; F. A. Cleveland, Growth of Democracy; F. J. Goodnow, Politics and Administration; B. A. Hinsdale, American Government; R. L. Ashley, American Federal State.

Herbert, Why the Solid South; Riis, Children of the Poor, How the Other Half Lives; Booker Washington, Up from Slavery.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

AT the beginning of the twentieth century the President of the United States was William McKinley, who was reelected

of Dutch descent. He graduated from Harvard College in 1880, and entered politics in the New York legislature in 1883, where he distinguished himself as a fighter for cheaper fares on the New York elevated roads. Then he raised cattle in

North Dakota, and wrote books on open-air life and American history. From 1889 to 1895 he was the leading spirit of the National Civil Service Commission. In 1897-1898 he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, but entered the army, and was one of the few men who in the Spanish War attracted popular attention by military services on land. His reputation in the war practically made him governor of New York (1899), and Vice President (1901). Roosevelt's distinguishing quali ties have been the courage to hold and express an opinion, a quick resolution and firmness of decision, and uncommon open

ness and directness.

501. Internal affairs

As President, Roosevelt had an opportunity to improve the civil service. 84,000 persons were already in the classified service, open to competitive examination. In 1904, out of 271,000 persons in the civil service, 143,000 were (1901-1904) classified or subject to examination; 7000 were subject to confirmation by the Senate, and 85,000 were country postmasters and clerks. President Roosevelt improved the consular service and practiced a system of promoting good diplomats from one post to another. In the southern states he followed the practice of forty years by nominating some colored men to office. To an outburst of denunciation from the South, he replied in a public letter that he would not "shut the door of opportunity" on the members of the negro race.

In 1902 a desperate strike of the anthracite coal miners of Pennsylvania threatened to leave the eastern states without necessary fuel: President Roosevelt came forward as a mediator, and by consent of both sides appointed a commission which settled the strike. He was much aroused on the subject of trusts and monopolies, and through the attorneygeneral brought suit under the act of 1890 (§ 462) to prevent the "merger," or consolidation, of the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy railroads; and the Supreme Court in 1904 held that the merger

was illegal. A more stringent anti-trust act was passed in 1903, under which the government may require corporations which do an interstate business to submit their accounts to the government; for half the evils of trusts and combinations can be prevented if the trusts can be made to tell the public what they are doing. Toward the Philippines and Cuba Roosevelt favored a liberal commercial policy; and he visited with his severe official displeasure a few officers convicted of torturing or otherwise abusing the Filipinos.

502. The isthmian

canal

In 1898 the battleship Oregon was compelled to steam fifteen thousand miles from San Francisco to join Sampson's fleet in the West Indies; and this incident again called attention. to the need of an isthmian canal. The breakdown of the Panama Company (§ 451) did not leave the field entirely (1899-1903) free, for the company still owned the land and the right to finish the canal; but it convinced the people of the United States that the only way to get a canal was for the United States