re are no classes of society
here. There is no condition of life, however low, from which a man may
not aspire and rise to the highest honors and the most enviable
distinction, provided that he has the requisite natural endowments,
favorable opportunities, and the ability and foresight to grasp them. The
materials of which our American population is composed are various in
origin and diverse in their ideas, their creeds, and their aims, but
nevertheless full of vital force and energy, and with a less percentage
of human weeds and refuse than any other nation on the globe. Nearly
everybody is at work, from the manufacturer worth millions, to the tramp
who earns his breakfast in the charity wood-yard. It is disreputable for
any one in vigorous health and years, and even when of ample fortune, to
be without employment, and for this reason rich young men frequently go
through the form of admission to the bar, or of medical graduation, in
order that it may not be said that they are unoccupied. The sons of
wealth who ignore the industrious example of their sires are still too
few in proportion to the multitude, and held in too general contempt, to
more than irritate the social surface. The aristocracy of America is an
aristocracy of workingmen--workingmen whose possessions are valued by the
hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars, but still men who work.

* * *

Great cities exert an influence on public affairs unknown half a century
ago. The enormous growth of municipalities may be judged from the fact
that the net municipal expenses of New York City, exclusive of the city's
share of the State debt, interest on the city's bonds, and money acquired
for the payment of some of the bonds at maturity, amount to $33,000,000
annually. On schools alone New York spends this year $5,900,000; Chicago,
$5,500,000, and Brooklyn, $2,500,000. This is the most hope-inspiring
item in municipal budgets. It may mean the salvation of the country.

* * *

The urban population is largely composed of the element known as
"foreign." The sixteen millions of immigrants who have come to the United
States since 1820, have made a deep impress on the Republic. Immigrants
and the descendants of immigrants have been of the greatest value in
developing American resources and building up American States, and the
large majority of citizens of recent alien origin are si