Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs/Chapter 03
III
CHANGES AND PROGRESS
AS I pass in this record from my childhood and early youth to the responsibilities of life, I am led to some reflections upon the changes in opinions and the changes in the condition of the people in the more than half-century from 1835 to 1899. At the first period there was not a clergyman of any of the Protestant denominations who questioned the plenary and verbal inspiration of the Scriptures, including the Old and New Testaments. The suggestion could not have been safely made in any New England pulpit that there were errors of translation, and yet the Christian world, outside the Catholic Church, now accepts a revision that changes the meaning of some passages and excludes others as interpolations. The account given in the first chapter of Genesis of the creation of the world and of man was accepted according to the meaning of the language used. At the present moment there is not a well-educated clergyman of any denomination who would not either treat the account as a legend, or else explain the days as periods of indefinite duration.
The claim of the verbal and plenary inspiration of the Old Testament is denied by many and doubted by others, and the volume is seen and treated by them as a compilation of works or books in which are recorded the thoughts and doings of men and tribes and nations that existed at different periods and flourished or suffered as is the fortune of mankind.
The early chapters of Genesis were then a faithful history; they are now a legend. The Book of Job was then an inspiration; it is now a poem. The reported interviews between Abraham and Jehovah were then thought to have been real; now they are treated as the visions of an excited brain. The ten commandments were then believed to have been delivered to Moses by the Supreme Being; now they are regarded as the work of a wise law-giver. Kings and Chronicles are now authentic histories written by honest men; then those records of events were attributed to the Supreme Ruler of the world.
The domain of prayer has been limited. Prayers for rain, for health, for mild winters and fruitful summers, were then made in all the churches. Now, with many exceptions no doubt, health is sought in obedience to the laws of our being, and the seasons find their quality in the operation of laws whose sources are in material organizations that cannot yield to human impulses.
The sources of knowledge have been multiplied almost indefinitely. In 1835 the daily newspaper was not often seen in country towns, and the circulation of the weekly paper was limited to a very small portion of the families. The postage was an important item. Relatively, the cost of papers was enormous. The mails were infrequent, and the people generally had not the means of paying the combined expenses. Many, perhaps most, of the papers, were sent upon credit, and it was not unusual to find subscribers several years in arrears. Many of the papers contained this notice: “No paper discontinued until all arrearages are paid,” as though sending a paper to a subscriber in debt, would compel him to make payment. New books were rare. The farmers and laborers had no slight difficulty in meeting the demands for schoolbooks, and these and the Bible were the total stock in a majority of houses.
The means of domestic comfort were limited to a degree not now easily comprehended. The brick oven and the open fire were the only means of cooking, and the open fire was the only means of warming the houses. Soon after 1835, and even before that year possibly, cylinder stoves were introduced into shops and stores. Stoves of other varieties soon followed. Upholstered furniture and carpets were not found in the houses of well-to-do farmers even.
The construction of railways and the invention of the telegraphic system of communication have revolutionized business and changed the habits of the people, but only the beginnings of their power are yet seen. They have made it possible for great free governments to exist permanently. Except for differences of languages all Europe might become one state, if indeed, first, the individual states could overthrow all dynastic institutions in families, and all forms of hierarchy in the churches. These changes to be followed by the abolition of all forms of mortmain, by the free sale of land, by the distribution of the estates of deceased persons by operation of law, by compulsory education with moral training, and the exclusion of all dogmatic teaching touching the origin or destiny of man. This freedom and the aggregation of small states in vast governments, by the consent of all parties, would be security for the peace of the world. With general peace would come the abolition of great armies, freedom from public debts, and numerous freeholders. These are the conditions of domestic and social comfort, the chief and worthiest objects of the State organization.
In 1830 the movement against the use of intoxicating liquors began—or rather it was about that year that the movement was strong enough to lead a small number of country merchants to abandon the trade. When I went into Mr. Heywood’s store, he had one hogshead of New England rum. That was sold, and there the business ended. As a general rule, the farmers used rum daily during the summer season, and drank freely of cider during the winter. On my father’s farm, rum toddy was drunk three times a day during the haying season, which lasted from the 4th of July to the 1st of August, or a little later. There was no general use of liquors at any other season.
At old election[1]—the last Wednesday in May—at Thanksgiving, the 4th of July, and when my grandfather visited us—which seems now not to have been more than three or four times a year—a pitcher of West India rum toddy was made, seasoned with nutmeg and toasted crackers.
The poverty of farms in respect of tools, made it almost impossible for farmers to prosper, except by cattle-raising and the cultivation of small grains. Farming is now an art, and the slavery of farm labor has in a degree disappeared. Formerly the business of farming was limited by the home product of manure, but the manufacture of phosphates has enabled the farmer to enlarge his operations in every direction that promises a return.
The railway system has driven the eastern farmer from the cultivation of wheat and corn, as it is not possible for him to compete with the new and fertile lands of the West. In these sixty years the wheat fields have moved from the East to the West. From 1820 to 1840 the valleys of the Mohawk and the Genesee furnished the finer flour for the cities of New York and New England. Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia supplied Baltimore and Philadelphia. Then Ohio became the chief source of supply. More recently the wheat region is in the upper valley of the Mississippi, and the State of California. The time is not far distant when a return movement will begin. Domestic markets in the vicinity of the great wheat fields will create a demand for other products. With the exhaustion of the soil will come the necessity for the use of artificial manures. Thus will be established a permanent condition of comparative equality between the East and the West.
Already the process has commenced in the culture of Indian corn. For a time the farmers of New England were unable to raise corn, even for farm use, in competition with the West. The fodder of the corn has now become valuable to farmers who produce milk for market, and already they are finding it profitable to raise corn, even when the price at the door does not exceed fifty cents per bushel. Coincident with these changes the States of the East have increased in population, and the proportion who live in cities is increasing at a greater ratio even. The railway system and the system of protection to American industry have been the chief instruments in the augmentation of population generally, and of the gains to cities. These changes have inured to the benefit of the Eastern farmers.
- ↑ Old election in Massachusetts was the last Wednesday in May, when, under the Constitution of 1780, the governor was inaugurated.