My life : a record of events and opinions - Wallace-online.org

292 MY LIFErich and poor—the very circumstances which drovethem to emigrate led to a natural selection of the mostenergetic, the most independent, in many respects thebest of their several nations. Such a people, furthertried and hardened by two centuries of struggleagainst the forces of nature and a savage population,and finally by a war of emancipation from the tyrannyof the mother country, would almost necessarilydevelop both the virtues, the prejudices, and even thevices of the parent stock in an exceptionally highdegree. Hence, when the march of invention and ofscience (to which they contributed their share) gavethem the steamship and the railroad ;when Californiagave them gold and Nevada silver, with the prospectof wealth to the lucky beyond the dreams of avarice;when the great prairies of the West gave them illimitableacres of marvellously fertile soil ;—it is notsurprising that these conditions with such a peopleshould have resulted in that mad race for wealth inwhich they have beaten the record, and have produceda greater number of multi-millionaires thanall the rest of the world combined, with the disastrousresults already briefly indicated.But this is only one side of the American character.Everywhere there are indications of a deeplove of nature, a devotion to science and to literaturefully proportionate to that of the older countries ;while in inventiveness and in the applications ofscience to human needs they have long been inthefirst rank. But what is more important, there is alsorapidly developing among them a fullrecognition ofthe failings of our common social system, and a determinationto remedy it. As in Germany, in France,and in England, the socialists are becoming a powerin America. They already influence public opinion.