e negro make a clear line of division
between the Old Northwest and the South. And yet in important historical
ideals--in the process of expansion, in the persistence of agricultural
interests, in impulsiveness, in imperialistic ways of looking at the
American destiny, in hero-worship, in the newness of its present social
structure--the Old Northwest has much in common with the South and the
Far West.

Behind her is the old pioneer past of simple democratic conditions, and
freedom of opportunity for all men. Before her is a superb industrial
development, the brilliancy of success as evinced in a vast population,
aggregate wealth, and sectional power.

FOOTNOTES:

[222:1] _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1897. Published by permission.

[238:1] For this information I am indebted to Professor F. W. Blackmar,
of the University of Kansas.

IX

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE WEST TO AMERICAN DEMOCRACY[243:1]

Political thought in the period of the French Revolution tended to treat
democracy as an absolute system applicable to all times and to all
peoples, a system that was to be created by the act of the people
themselves on philosophical principles. Ever since that era there has
been an inclination on the part of writers on democracy to emphasize the
analytical and theoretical treatment to the neglect of the underlying
factors of historical development.

If, however, we consider the underlying conditions and forces that
create the democratic type of government, and at times contradict the
external forms to which the name democracy is applied, we shall find
that under this name there have appeared a multitude of political types
radically unlike in fact.

The careful student of history must, therefore, seek the explanation of
the forms and changes of political institutions in the social and
economic forces that determine them. To know that at any one time a
nation may be called a democracy, an aristocracy, or a monarchy, is not
so important as to know what are the social and economic tendencies of
the state. These are the vital forces that work beneath the surface and
dominate the external form. It is to changes in the economic and social
life of a people that we must look for the forces, that ultimately
create and modify organs of political action.

For the time, adaptation of political structure may be incomplete or
concealed. Old organs will be utilized to express new forces, and so
gradual and subtle will be the cha