selling the people of Hindustan; and, to crown all, to extend
far and wide the traffic in oil, by killing tame whales on the spot,
instead of sailing around the stormy region of Cape Horn.'

"All these advantages and more were suggested to divers discontented and
impatient young men. Talk to them of the great labor, toil, risk, and
they would turn a deaf ear to you; argue with them and you might as well
reason with a snowstorm."

If you would understand the driving power of America, you must
understand "the divers discontented and impatient young men" who in each
generation have found in the American wilderness an outlet for their
energies. In the rough contacts with untamed Nature they learned to be
resourceful. Emerson declared that the country went on most
satisfactorily, not when it was in the hands of the respectable Whigs,
but when in the hands of "these rough riders--legislators in
shirt-sleeves--Hoosier, Sucker, Wolverine, Badger--or whatever hard-head
Arkansas, Oregon, or Utah sends, half-orator, half-assassin, to
represent its wrath and cupidity at Washington."

The men who made America had an "excess of virility." "Men of this
surcharge of arterial blood cannot live on nuts, herb-tea, and elegies;
cannot read novels and play whist; cannot satisfy all their wants at the
Thursday Lecture and the Boston Athenaeum. They pine for adventure and
must go to Pike's Peak; had rather die by the hatchet of the Pawnee than
sit all day and every day at the counting-room desk. They are made for
war, for the sea, for mining, hunting, and clearing, and the joy of
eventful living."

In Emerson's day there was ample scope for all these varied energies on
the frontier. "There are Oregons, Californias, and Exploring Expeditions
enough appertaining to America to find them in files to gnaw and
crocodiles to eat."

But it must have occurred to some one to ask, "What will happen when the
Oregons and Californias are filled up?" Well, the answer is, "See what
is happening now." Instead of settling down to herb-tea and elegies,
Young America, having finished one big job, is looking for another. The
noises which disturb you are not the cries of an angry proletariat, but
are the shouts of eager young fellows who are finding new opportunities.
They have the same desire to do big things, the same joy in eventful
living, that you had thirty years ago. Only the tasks that challenge
them have taken a different form.

When you hear the w