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PART I

THE BEGINNINGS OF COÖPERATION, ORDER, AND LIBERTY

T

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

HE business of being an American citizen is not Living what it was when our nation was founded. At in 1776 that time most men in this country were farmers. There were no factories, no railways, no cities of any considerable size. Practically all the people of the colonies were of one race and language. None were very rich and none very poor. They were separated from Europe by a voyage of months. The great tasks of men and women were those of the pioneer: first, to settle the wilderness, cut the forests, plant and harvest; and second, to establish homes, schools, churches, laws, and government. Their new nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

set new

problems

Today the work of getting a living is in many ways Changed less heroic than in the days of the pioneer. It does not conditions call for the same hardships; it does not get us up so early of a winter's morning, it does not compel us to make our journeys mainly on foot or to transport our goods by oxen; it does not compel the housewife to know spinning, weaving, cutting and making garments, soap and candlemaking as well as cooking and housekeeping. But the very fact that all these kinds of work once done by hand and in the household, as well as many other new kinds of manufacturing which could not have been done at all in the old days, have gone

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