Selected readings in economics

Front matter

I,

I ii

.0^

Preface

This volume aims to supply the collateral reading needed for a general course of study in economics. It makes no effort to present selections upon all the topics treated in such a course, but endeavors merely to provide supplementary material, historical, descriptive, and theoretical, which will enrich the instruction offered. The footnotes to the several selections disclose the extent of the editor's indebtedness to various authors who have consented to the reproduction of passages from their works. In this place, however, acknowledgment should be made of the helpful advice and criticism received from the editor's colleague, Professor F. W. Tau§|Hg, of Harvard University.

CHARLES J. BULLOCK

Contents

Chapter Page

I. The Effect ok the Phvsiograi'Hv of North America upon

Men of European Origin. By N. S. Shaler 1

Chapter I

THE EFFECT OF THE PHYSIOGRAPHY OF NORTH AMERICA UPON MEN OF EUROPEAN ORIGIN »

In their organic life the continents of America have always stood somewhat apart from those of the Old World. This isolation is marked in every stage of their geological history. In each geological period they have many forms that never found their way to the other lands, and we fail to find there many species that are abundant in the continents of the Old World.

The same causes that kept the animal and vegetable life of the Americas distinct from Europe and Asia have served to keep those continents apart from the human history of the Old World. Something more than the relations that are patent on a map are necessary to a proper understanding of the long-continued isolation of these continents.

In the first place, we may notice the fact that from the Old World the most approachable side of these continents lies on the west. Not only are the lands of the New and Old World there brought into close relations with each other, but the ocean streams of the North Pacific flow toward America. Moreover, the Nortli Pacific is a sea of a calmer temper than the North Atlantic, and the chance farera over its surface would be

1 By Nathaniel S. Shaler. Reprinted from Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. IV, by arrangement with the publishers. Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston.

more likely to survive its perils. In the North Atlantic, over which alone the Aryan peoples could well have found their way to America, we have a wide sea, which is not only the stormiest in the world, but its currents set strongly against western-going ships, and the prevailing winds blow from the west.^ If it had been intended that America should long remain unknown to the seafaring peoples of Semitic or Aryan race, it would not have been easy, within the compass of earthly conditions, to accomplish it in a more effective manner than it has been done by thcx present geography.

The result is that man, who doubtless originated in the Old World, early found his way to America by the Pacific; and all the so-called indigenous races known to us in the Americas seem to have closer relations to the peoples living in northern Asia than to those of any other country. It is pretty clear that none of the aboriginal American peoples have found their way to these continents by way of the Atlantic.

Although the access to the continent of North America is much more easily had upon its western side, and though all the early settlements were probably made that way, the configuration of the land is such that it is not possible to get easy access to the heart of the continent from the Pacific shore ; so that though the Atlantic ocean was most forbidding and difficult as a way to America, once passed, it gave the freest and best access to the body of the continent. In the west the Cordilleras are a formidable bar to those who seek to enter the continent from the Pacific. None but a modern civilization would ever have forced its barriers of mountains and deserts. An ancient civilization, if it had penetrated America from the west, would have recoiled from the labor of traversing this mountain system, that combines the difficulties of the Alps and the Sahara. If European emigration had found such a mountain system on the eastern face of the continent, the history of America would

1 It is likely that some part of the Aryan folk found their way to the Pacific shore in Korea and elsewhere ; but the Aryan migrations setting to the east must have been uncommon, and the chance of Caucasian blood reaching America by this route small.

THE EFFECT OF PIIYSTOGKArHY 3

have been very different. Scarcely any other continent offers such easy ingress as does this continent to those who come to it from the Atlantic side. Tlie valleys of the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, tlie Mississippi, in a fashion, also, of the Susquehanna and the James, break through or pass around the low coast mountains, and afford free w^ays into the whole of the interior that is attractive to European peoples. No part of the Alleghenian system presents any insuperable obstacles to those wlio seek to penetrate the inner lands. The whole of its surface is fit for human uses ; there are neither deserts of sand nor of snow. The ax alone would open ways readily passable to men and horses. So that when the early settlers had passed the sea, all their formidable geographical difficulties were at an end, — with but little further toil the wide land lay open to them. I propose in the subsequent pages to give a sketch of the physical conditions of this continent, with reference to the transplanted civilization that has developed upon its soil. It will be impossible, within the limits of tliis essay, to do more than indicate these conditions in a very general way, for the details of the subject w'ould constitute a work in itself. It will be most profitable for us first to glance at the general relations of climate and soil that are found in North America, so far as these features bear upon the history of the immigration it has received from Europe.

The climate of North America south of the Laurentian mountains and east of the Rocky mountains is much more like that of Europe than of any we find in the other continents. Although there are many points of difference, these variations lie well within the climatic range of Europe itself. On the south Mexico may well be compared to Italy and Spain ; in the southern parts of the Mississippi valley we have conditions in general comparable to those of Lombardy and central P^ ranee ; and in the northern portions of that area and along the sea border we can find fair parallels for the conditions of Great Britain, Germany, or Scandinavia. As is well known, the range of temperature during the year varies much more in America than in Europe, but tliese variations in themselves are of small importance. Man in a direct way is not much affected by temperature ; his elastic body, helped by his arts, may within certain limits neglect this element of climate. The real question is how far these temperatures affect the products of the soil upon which his civilization depends. In the case of most plants and domestic animals, their development depends more upon the summer temperature, or that of the spring season, than upon the winter climate. Now the summer climates of America are more like those of Europe than are those of the winter. So the new-won continent offered to man a chance to rear all the plants and animals which he had brought to domesticity in the Old World.

The general character of the soil of North America is closely comparable with that of Europe, yet it has certain noteworthy peculiarities. In the first place, there is a larger part of America which has been subjected to glacial action than what we find in Europe. In Europe only the northern half of Great Britain, the Scandinavian peninsulas, a part of northern Germany, and the region of Switzerland were under the surface of the glaciers during the last glacial period. In America practically all of the country north of the Susquehanna, and more than half of the states north of the Ohio, had their soils influenced by this ice period. The effects of glaciation on the soils of the region where it has acted are important. In the first place, the soils thus produced are generally clayey and of a rather stubborn nature, demanding much care and labor to bring them into a shape for the plow. The surface is usually thickly covered with stones, which have to be removed before the plow can be driven. I have estimated that not less than an average of thirty days' labor has been given to each acre of New England soil to put it into arable condition after the forest has been removed ; nearly as much labor has to be given to removing the forest and undergrowth : so that each cultivated acre in this glacial region requires about two months' labor before it is in shape for effective tillage.^ When so prepared

1 I have elsewhere (Introduction to the Memorial History of Boston) noticed the fact that this difficulty in clearing the glaciated soils led the early settlers

THE EFFECT OF PHYSIOGRAPHY 5

the soils of glaciated districts are of a very even fertility. They hold the same character over wide areas, and their constitution is the same to great depths. Though never of the highest order of fertility, they remain for centuries constant in their power. I have never seen a worn-out field of this sort. Another peculiarity of the American soils is the relatively large area of limestone lands which the country affords. America abounds in deposits of this nature, which produce soils of the first quality, extremely well fitted to the production of grass and grains. Although statistical information is not to be obtained on such a matter, T have no doubt, after a pretty close scrutiny of both America and Europe, that the original fertility of America was greater than that of Europe ; but that, on the whole, the regions first settled by Europeans were much more difficult to subdue than the best lands of central and southern Europe had been.^

The foregoing statement needs the following qualification : owing to the relative dryness and heat of the American summer, the forests are not so swampy as they are in northern Europe, and morasses are generally absent. It required many centuries of continued labor to bring the surface of northern Germany, northern France, and of Britain into conditions fit for tillage.

Next to deserts and snowy mountains, swamps are the greatest barriers to the movements of man. If the reader will follow the interesting account of the Saxon Conquest given in Mr. Green's volume on " The Making of England," he will see how

of New England to use the poorer soils first. Along the shore and the rivers there is a strip of sandy terrace deposits, the soils of which are rather lean, but which are free from bowlders, so that the labor of clearing was relatively small. All, or nearly all, the first settlements in the glaciated districts were made on this class of .soils.

^ The slow progress of our agricultural exports, during the first two hundred years of this country, is in good part to be explained by the stubborn character of the soil which was then in use. The only easily subdued soils in use before 1800 were those of Virginia and Maryland. The sudden advance of the export trade in grain during the last fifty years marks the change which brought the great areas of non-glaciated soils of the Mississippi valley and the South under cultivation.

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the tracts of marsh and marshy forest served for many centuries to limit the work of subjugation. In America there are no extensive bogs or wet forests in the upland district south of the St. Lawrence, except in Maine and the British provinces. In all other districts fire or the ax can easily bring the surface into a shape fit for cultivation. In taking an account of the physical conditions which formed the subjugation of North America by European colonies, we must give a large place to this absence of upland swamps and the dryness of the forests, which prevented the growth of peaty matter within their bounds.

The success of the first settlements in America was also greatly aided by the fact that the continent afforded them a new and cheaper source of bread, in the maize or Indian corn which was everywhere used by the aborigines of America. It is difficult to convey an adequate impression of the importance of this grain in the early history of America. In the first place, it yields not less than twice the amount of food per acre of tilled land, with much less labor than is required for an acre of small grains ; it is far less dependent on the changes of seasons ; the yield is much more uniform than that of the old European grains ; the harvest need not be made at such a particular season ; the crops may with little loss be allowed to remain ungathered for weeks after the grain is ripe ; the stalks of the grain need not be touched in the harvesting, the ears alone being gathered ; these stalks are of greater value for forage than is the straw of wheat and other similar grains. Probably the greatest' advantage of all that this beneficent plant afforded to the early settlers was the way in which it could be planted without plowing, amid the standing forest trees which had only been deadened by having their bark stripped away by the ax. This rough method of tillage was unknown among the peoples of the Old World. None of their cultivated plants were suited to it; but the maize admitted of such rude tillage. The aborigines, with no other implements than stone axes and a sort of spade armed also with stone, would kill the forest trees by girdling or cutting away a strip around the bark. This admitted the light to the

THE EFFECT OF PHYSl()(iKAPHV 7

soil. Then breaking up patches of earth, tliey planted the grains of maize among the standing trees ; its strong roots readily penetrated deep into the soil, and the strong tops fought their way to the light with a vigor which few plants possess. The grain was ready for domestic use within three months from the time of planting, and in four months it was ready for the harvest.

The beginnings in civilization which the aborigines of this country had made, rested on this crop and on the pumpkin, which seems to have been cultivated with it by the savages, as it still is by those who inherited their lands and their methods of tillage. The European colonists almost everywhere and at once adopted this crop and the methods of tillage which the Indians used. Maize fields, with pumpkin vines in the interspaces of the plants, became for many years the prevailing, indeed almost the only, crop throughout the northern part of America. It is hardly too n^ich to say, that, but for these American plants and the American method of tilling them, it would have been decidedly more difficult to have fixed the early colonies on this shore.

Another American plant has had an important influence on the history of American commerce, though it did not aid in the settlement of the country, — tobacco. That singular gift of the New World to the Old quickly gave the basis of a gi-eat export to the colonies of Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina ; it alone enabled the agriculture of the southern colonies to outgrow in wealth those which were planted in more northern soil. To this crop, which demands much manual labor of an unskilled kind, and rewards it well, we owe the lapid development of African slavery. It is doubtful if this system of slavery would ever have flourished if America had been limited in its crops to those plants which the settlers brought from the Old World. Although African slavery existed for a time in the states north of the tobacco region, it died away in them even before the humanitarian sentiments of modern times could have aided in its destruction ; it was the profitable nature of tobacco crops which fixed this institution on our soil, as it was

8 SELECTED EEADIN (18 IN ECONOMICS

the great extension of cotton culture which made this system take on its overpowering growth during the first decades of the nineteenth century.

Another interesting effect of the conditions of tillage which met the early settlers upon this soil depends upon the peculiar distribution of forests in North America. All those regions which were first occupied by European peoples were covered by very dense forests. To clear these woods away required not less than thirty days' labor to each acre of land. In the glaciated districts, as before remarked, this labor of preparation was nearly doubled. The result was that the area of tillage only slowly expanded as the population grew denser, and the surplusage of grain for export was small during the first two centuries. When in the nineteenth century the progress westward suddenly brought the people upon the open lands of the prairies, the extension of tillage went on with far greater celerity. We are now in the midst of the great revolution that these easily won and very fertile lands are making in the affairs of the world. For the first time in human history a highly skilled people have suddenly come into possession of a vast and fertile area which stands ready for tillage without the labor which is necessary to prepare forest land for the plow. They are thus able to fiood the grain markets of the world with food derived from lands which represent no other labor beyond tillage except that involved in constructing railways for the exportation of their products. This enables the people of the western plains to compete with countries where the land represents a great expenditure of labor in overcoming the natural barriers to the cultivation of the soil.

There are many lesser peculiarities connected with the soils of North America that have had considerable influence upon the history of the people; the most essential fact is, however, that the climatic conditions of this continent are such that all the important European products, except the olive, will flourish over a wide part of its surface. " So that the peoples who come to it from any part of Europe find a climate not essentially different from their own, where the plants and animals on

whicli their civilization rested will flourish as well as in their own home.^

We may note also that the climate of North America brought Europeans in contact with no new diseases. North of the Gulf of Mexico the maladies of man were not increased by the transportation from Europe. It is difficult to arrive at a satisfactory determination concerning the effect of American conditions upon the peoples who have come from Europe to live a life of many generations upon its soil. Much has been said in a desultory way upon this subject, but little that has any very clear scientific value. The problem is a very complicated one. In the first place, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to separate the effects of climate from those brought about by a diversity of the social conditions, such as habits of labor, of food, etc. Moreover, the problem is further complicated by the fact that there has been a constant influx of folk into America from various parts of Europe, so that in most parts of the country there has been a constant admixture of the old blood and the new.

After reviewing the sources of information, I am convinced that the following facts may be regarded as established : the American people are no smaller in size than are the peoples in Europe from which they are derived ; they are at least as long-lived; their capacity to withstand wounds, fatigue, etc., is at least as great as that of any European people ; the average of physical beauty is probably quite as good as it is among an equal population in the Old World ; the fecundity of the people

1 It is an interesting fact that while America has given but one domesticated animal to Europe, in the turkey, it has furnished a number of the most important vegetables, among them maize, tobacco, and the potato. The absence of strong domesticable animals in America doubtless affected the development of civilization among its indigenous people. The buffalo is apparently not domesticable. The horse, which seems to have been developed on North American soil, and to have spread thence to Europe and Asia, seems to have disappeared in America before the coming of man to its shores. The only beast which could profitably be subjugated was the weak vicuna, which could only be used for carrying light burdens. But for the help given them by the sheep, the bull, and the horse, we may well doubt if the Old-World races would have won their way much more effectively than those of America had done.

is not diminished. The compass of this essay will not permit me to enter into the details necessary to defend these propositions as they might be defended. I will, however, show certain facts which seem to support them. First, as regards the physical proportions of the American people. By far the largest collections of accurate measurements that have ever been made of men were made by the officers of the United States Sanitary Commission during the late Civil War. These statistics have been carefully tabulated by Dr. B. A. Gould, the distinguished astronomer. From the results reached by him it is plain that the average dimensions of these troops were as good as those of any European army ; while the men from those states where the population had been longest separated from the mother country were, on the whole, the best formed of all.

The statistics of the life-insurance companies make it clear that the death rate is not higher in America among the classes that insure than in England. I am credibly informed that American companies expect a longer life among their clients than the English tables of mortality assume.

The endurance of fatigue and wounds in armies has been proved by our Civil War to be as good as that of the best English or Continental troops. Such forced marches as that of Buell to the relief of the overwhelmed troops at Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, — where the men marched thirty-five miles without rest, and at once entered upon a contest which checked a victorious army, — is proof enough of the physical and moral endurance of the people. The extraordinary percentage of seriously wounded men that recovered during the war, — a proportion without parallel in European armies, — can only be attributed to the innate vigor of the men, and not to any superiority in the treatment they received. The distinguished physiologist. Dr. Brown-Sequard, assures me that the American body, be it that of man or beast, is more enduring of wounds than the European ; that to make a given impression upon the body of a creature in America it is necessary to inflict severer wounds than it would be to produce the same effect on a creature of the same species in Europe. His opportunities for

THE EFFECT OF PHYSIOGEAPHY 11

forming an opinion on this subject have been singularly great, so that the assertion seems to me very important. That the fecundity of the population is not, on the whole, diminishing, is sufficiently shown by the statistics of the country. In the matter of physical beauty, the condition of the American people cannot, of course, be made a matter of statistics. The testimony of all intelligent travelers is to the effect that the forms of the people have lost nothing of their distinguished inheritance of beauty from their ancestors. The face is certainly no less intellectual in its type than that of the Teutonic peoples of the Old World, while the body is, though perhaps of a less massive mold, without evident marks of less symmetry. ********

I next propose to consider the especial physical features of the continent in reference to the several settlements that were made upon it, the extent to which the geography and the local conditions of soil, climate, etc., have affected the fate of the several colonies planted on the eastern shore of North America north of Mexico.

Chance rather than choice determined the position of the several colonies that were planted on the American soil. So little was known of the natural conditions of the continent, or even of its shore geography, and the little that had been discovered was so unknown to navigators in general, that it was not possible to exercise much discretion in the placing of the first settlers in the New World. It happened that in this lottery the central parts of the American continent fell to the English people ; while the French, by one chance and another, came into possession of two parts of the coast separated by over two thousand miles of shore. It will be plain from the map that these two positions were essentially the keys to the continent. The access to the interior of the continent by natural waterways is by two lines, — on the north by the St. Lawrence system of lakes and rivers; on the south by the Mississippi system of rivers, which practically connects with the St. Lawrence system. Fortune, in giving France the control of these two great avenues, offered her the mastery of the whole of its vast domain. We have only to consider the part that the pathway of the Rhine played in the history of mediaeval trade in Europe, to understand how valuable these lines would have been until railways and canals had come to compete with waterways.

********

Throughout their efforts in North America the French showed a capacity for understanding the large questions of political geography, a genius for exploration, and a talent for making use of its results, or guiding their way to dominion, that is in singular contrast with the blundering processes of their English rivals. They seem to have understood the possibilities of the Mississippi valley a century and a half before the English began to understand them. They planted a system of posts and laid out lines for commerce through this region ; they strove to organize the natives into civilized communities ; they did all that the conditions permitted to achieve success. Their failure must be attributed to the want of colonists, to the essential irreclaimableness of the American savage, and to the want of a basis for an extended commerce in this country. There were no precious metals to tempt men into this wilderness, and none of the fancy for life or for lands among the home people, — that wandering instinct which has been the basis of all the imperial power of the English race. Thus a most cleverly devised scheme of continental occupation, which was admirably well adapted to the physical conditions of the country, never came near to success. It fell beneath. the clumsy power of another race that had the capacity for fixing itself firmly in new lands, and that grew without distinct plan until it came to possess them altogether.

The British settlements on the American coast were not very well placed for other than the immediate needs that led to their planting. They did not hold any one of the three waterways which led from the coast into the interior of the continent, as we have seen the French obtained the control of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, and, as is well known, the Dutch possession of the Hudson, which constituted the

THE EFFECT OF rilY8iOGKAPH V 13

third and least complete of the waterways into the interior of the continent.

As regards their ph^^sical conditions, the original English colonies are divisible into three groups, — those of New England ; those of the Chesapeake and Delaware district, including Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and the central part of North Carolina ; and those on the coast region of the Carolinas. Each of these regions has its proper [)hysical characters, which have had special effects upon tlieir early history. In New England we have a shore line that affords an excellent system of harbors for craft of all sizes, and a sea that abounds in fish. The land lias a rugged surface made up of old mountain folds, which have been worn down to their roots by the sea and by the glaciers of many ice periods. There are no extended plains, and where small patches of level land occur, as along the sea, there they are mostly of a rather barren and sandy character. The remainder of the surface is very irregular, and nearly one half of it is either too steep for tillage or consists of exposed rocks. The soil is generally of clay, and was originally covered almost everywhere with closely sown bowlders that had to be removed before the plow could do its work. The livers are mostly small, and from their numerous rapids not navigable to any great distance from the sea, and none of their valleys afford natural ways into the interior of the continent. In general structure this region is an isolated mass separated from the body of the continent by the high ridges of the Green mountains and the Berkshire hills, as well as by the deep valley in which lie the Hudson and Lake Cliamplain. The climate is rigorous, only less so than that of Canada. There are not more than seven months for agricultuial labor.