t to develop the
individuality and initiative of a man and, second, to put him, as it
were, on his honour. It is, of course, of the essence of a democracy
that each man should be encouraged to develop whatever good may be in
him and to receive recognition therefor; but there have been other
factors at work in the shaping of the American character besides the
form of government. Chief among these factors have been the work which
Americans have had to do in subduing their own continent and that they
have had to do it unaided and in isolation. Washington Irving has a
delightful sentence somewhere (in _Astoria_ I think) about the
frontiersman hewing his way through the back woods and developing his
character by "bickering with bears." "The frontiersmen, by their
conquest of nature, had come to despise the strength of all enemies,"
says Dr. Sparks in his _History of the United States_. It was only to be
expected, it was indeed inevitable, that the first of American
thinkers--the man whose philosophy caught the national fancy and has
done more towards the moulding of a national temperament than, perhaps,
any man who ever wrote, should have been before all things the Apostle
of the Individual. "Insist upon Thyself!" Emerson says--not once, but it
runs as a refrain through everything he wrote or thought. "Always do
what you are afraid to do!" "The Lord will not make his works manifest
by a coward." "God hates a coward." "America is only another name for
Opportunity." My quotations come from random memory, but the spirit is
right. It is the spirit which Americans have been obliged to have since
the days when the Fathers walked to meeting in fear of Indian arrows.
And they need it yet. It has become an inheritance with them and it,
more than anything else, shapes the form and method of their politics
and above all of their business conduct.

I have said elsewhere that in society (except only in certain circles in
certain cities of the East) it is the individual character and
achievements of the man himself that count; neither his father nor his
grandfather matters--nor do his brothers and sisters. And it is the same
in business. I am not saying that good credentials and strong friends
are not of use to any man; but without friends or credentials, the man
who has an idea which is commercially valuable will find a market in
which to sell it. If he has the ability to exploit it himself and the
power to convince others of his integri