Source: The Reader's Digest Association, Inc.

Copyright 1975

Why It Happened Here

Unprecedented in the history of the world is the explosion of social, political, and technical phenomena that occurred on this continent, paticularly from the 1850s to the present.

  In that brief span mankind acccelerated the rate of travel from the gallop of a horse to twice the speed of sound.  Communication progressed from the pony express to the instantaneous.  Comfort and convenience advanced from candlelight and an open flame to complete control of every nuance of light, hear, and humidity - and the list could go on and on.

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  There have been other changes, too. From the smoothbore musket of the 1700s, which could fire a single lead ball at a rate of three to five a minute, with reasonable accuracy for a distance of only 100 yards, we have progressed, if that is the word, to atomic weapons with the potential to destroy all mankind.

  The damage and depredation that we are now wreaking on the topsoil, the rivers and seas, and the reserves of fossil fuel is another aspect of progress with consequences that are, as yet, incalculable.

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  While it is true that other countries helped to set the stage,

 the most dramatic breakthroughs in the last century...

...through today, happened here.

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How did this come to pass?  Why here? What were the ingredients?

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  There is no simple answer, but there have been some definable forces at work.  While the harsh restrictive aspects of the Calvinist doctrine espoused by the puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the mid-1600s no longer prevail, the Puritans' dedication to the practical virtues of hard work and self-relance is still part of the American credo.  The homely wisdom of Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard Almanack, as presented in his popular Almanack of 1732-57, also helped sustain the belief that hard work would be rewarded.

  Horation Alger, one of the bestselling authors of all time, pushed the concept to its furthest reaches. From the beginning this was a land where idleness was disdained; so what better setting for progress and development?  This went hand in hand with the widespread belief of the rightness of our national goals and aspirations.  The Puritans believed devoutly that this country, and they in particular, were the beneficiaries of God's special favor.  They believed that theirs was a "City upon a Hill", a special protectorate of God.  Puritan historian Edward Johnson wrote in the 1650s that the Lord had "sifted a whole Nation to plant his choice grain" in america's rich soil.  Two centuries later this strain was still being played.

  Novelist Herman Melville believed that "We Americans are the peculiar chose people, the Israel fo our time; we bear the ark of liverties of the world".  From the beginning the mighty engine that would subdue a wild continent was fueled by conficenc, optimism, and faith.

  In 1845 the fever of manifest destiny swept the Nation.  In that year magizine editor John L. O'Sullivan wrote that no nation on earth should be allowed to interfere with America's "manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by providence for the free development or our yearly multiplying millions".  It has been a recurring belief that as an agent of Providence whatever promotes America's fortunes is a blessing to the world at large.  This is powerful medicine, and it helped produce some miraculous results.

  I was easy to become a believer.  One had only to look around for full evidenc of the Lord's bounty.  Here was some of the best agricultural soil on the face of the globe.  Vast forests spread out for hundreds of miles, filled with deer, beaver, and wild-fowl.  The ocean and rivers teemed with fish.  There were mountains of coal and iron ore, reservoirs of oil, and rich veins of gold and silver.  This was truly a chosen land for a chosen people.  And the people came: for the freedom and for the bounty of the land.  The Indians showed the earliest settlers new crops and methods of planting.  This amity did not prevail, but it was crucial at the time.  With the successive waves of immigration, there wa an ebb and flow or cooperation, as well as conflict.  Some people cam with fortunes to invest, others came in chains.  They cam from every land and brought their religion, language, dance, art, music, and cuisine.  They worked, played, and learned together, and inter-married.  This mix of people with varied points of view, skills, and interests produced miracles.  Credit for our success belongs to all.

  No single element determined why so much that is so felicitious happened here in such a short time.  But a major aspect is our unique system of government, which strikes a worable balance betwen the rights of the governed and the rights of government itself.  If we Americans hold fast to the concept that everyone has equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as expressed by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence, and that the primary purpose of government is to maintain these rights, we will have done justice to that inspiring statue in New York Harbor that its sculptor, Frederic auguste Bartholdi, called "Liberty Enlightening the World".

  It must be noted...In France, from 1685 until 1787, the Protestant Huguenots were killed or expelled. Thousands of them found refuge in America.  In England, the cities were rife with the degradation engendered by poverty, crowing, squalor, diseas, and enforced idleness.  In Ireland, as in most of Europe, the peasantry was hounded to harvest more for the landowneers than the soil could possibly produce.

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