ptation of organs in response to changed environment, a history of
the origin of new political species. In this sense, therefore, the West
has been a constructive force of the highest significance in our life.
To use the words of that acute and widely informed observer, Mr. Bryce,
"The West is the most American part of America. . . . What Europe is to
Asia, what America is to England, that the Western States and
Territories are to the Atlantic States."

* * * * *

The West, as a phase of social organization, began with the Atlantic
coast, and passed across the continent. But the colonial tide-water area
was in close touch with the Old World, and soon lost its Western
aspects. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the newer social
conditions appeared along the upper waters of the tributaries of the
Atlantic. Here it was that the West took on its distinguishing features,
and transmitted frontier traits and ideals to this area in later days.
On the coast, were the fishermen and skippers, the merchants and
planters, with eyes turned toward Europe. Beyond the falls of the rivers
were the pioneer farmers, largely of non-English stock, Scotch-Irish and
German. They constituted a distinct people, and may be regarded as an
expansion of the social and economic life of the middle region into the
back country of the South. These frontiersmen were the ancestors of
Boone, Andrew Jackson, Calhoun, Clay, and Lincoln. Washington and
Jefferson were profoundly affected by these frontier conditions. The
forest clearings have been the seed plots of American character.

In the Revolutionary days, the settlers crossed the Alleghanies and put
a barrier between them and the coast. They became, to use their phrases,
"the men of the Western waters," the heirs of the "Western world." In
this era, the backwoodsmen, all along the western slopes of the
mountains, with a keen sense of the difference between them and the
dwellers on the coast, demanded organization into independent States of
the Union. Self-government was their ideal. Said one of their rude, but
energetic petitions for statehood: "Some of our fellow-citizens may
think we are not able to conduct our affairs and consult our interests;
but if our society is rude, much wisdom is not necessary to supply our
wants, and a fool can sometimes put on his clothes better than a wise
man can do it for him." This forest philosophy is the philosophy of
American dem