third leader was John R. McCulloch, an orthodox economist, a
disciple of Adam Smith, for some years editor of The Scotsman,
which was then a violently radical journal cooperating with the
newly established Edinburgh Review in advocating sociological and
political reforms.

Thus Great Britain, the mother country from which Americans have
inherited so many institutions, laws, and traditions, passed in
turn through the periods of extreme paternalism, glorified
competition, and governmental antagonism to labor combinations,
into what may be called the age of conciliation. And today the
Labour Party in the House of Commons has shown itself strong
enough to impose its programme upon the Liberals and, through
this radical coalition, has achieved a power for the working man
greater than even Francis Place or Thomas Carlyle ever hoped for.



CHAPTER II. FORMATIVE YEARS

America did not become a cisatlantic Britain, as some of the
colonial adventurers had hoped. A wider destiny awaited her. Here
were economic conditions which upset all notions of the fixity of
class distinctions. Here was a continent of free land, luring the
disaffected or disappointed artisan and enabling him to achieve
economic independence. Hither streamed ceaselessly hordes of
immigrants from Europe, constantly shifting the social
equilibrium. Here the demand for labor was constant, except
during the rare intervals of financial stagnation, and here the
door of opportunity swung wide to the energetic and able artisan.