| Never before in the history
of the world has a democracy existed on so vast an area and handled things
in the gross with such success, with such largeness
of design, and such grasp upon the means of execution. In short, democracy
has learned in the West of the United States how to deal with the problem
of magnitude. The old historic democracies were but little states with
primitive economic conditions.
But the very task of dealing with vast resources, over vast areas, under the conditions of free competition furnished by the West, has produced the rise of those captains of industry whose success in consolidating economic power now raises the question as to whether democracy under such conditions can survive. 1920: THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY, by Frederick Jackson Turner, p.25 |