The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-09 00:00:00

Char cter of the West.

One of our contributors recently remarked that
the sceptre of political power is rapidly passing from
the East to the West. The statistician and the
traveller alike sanction this statement. Like Jonah's
gourd, cities rise in a night ; and States start up,
full grown, in the lonely wilderness, ere we hear of
their existence in the East. There is no parallel in
history to the wonderful and continuous advance of
the West. Take Chicago as an example of this ex-
traordinary progress. Twenty-six years ago its
population numbered 4,470. It has increased nearly
fifty-fold since that date, and to-day boasts of its
two hundred thousand inhabitants. It is already
the New York of the West. A century hence it
may rival London by its magnitude. Every care-
ful reader of history and human nature is aware of
the fact that climatic and social influences mould
and vary the mental and moral characteristics of
men. The East and the West—New England, for
instance, and Illinois—are subject to influences
which produce permanent and distinctive traits in
the habits of life and of thought of the people of the
two sections. Let us illustrate this difference by
comparing Chicago, the representative of the West,
with Boston, the representative of the East. Meet
two perfect types of these two typical cities in any
part of the world, and you could not possibly con-
found them. Both are emphatically American in
their character, tendencies, and sympathies ; but
each is distinct and peculiar in his expression of
these national birth-marks. The Western man
laughs at the Boston boy as the native of the North
of England laughs at the Cockney. He looks upon
him, when perfectly developed, as a snob in social
life, a man-milliner in dress, a dilletante in litera-
ture and art. The Yankee, on the other hand, re-
gards the Western man as coarse, slovenly, and un-
cultivated. He retorts by the term " upstart," to
the epithet of "paper-collar fellow." Boston is
essentially an aristocratic city. Whether we use the
phrase in a complimentary or in a disparaging sense,
that
tsocietycliques
in " the modern
and classes,
itA Athens" is
rather than a Democratic community. It is welded
equallyis a
confederation true
o
together by interests and tradition, not fused by
identity of ideas and aims. It is a mosaic, not a
quarry. It is, at the same time, the brain of
Republicanism in America, and a colony of Euro-
pean scholars and "fanatics." There are classes in
Boston who think as much of blood as the younger
Barnacle of the circumlocution office. " Race" is
their countersign, and Winthrop is its prophet.
They are proud of their lineage. They compile
costly genealogies, tracing backward to Pilgrims and
to European ancestors. There are other classes
whose creed seems to be that not Great Nature, but
Harvard College, is the true creator of men. Less
precious in their sight is the " scul of flame" than
the university's diploma. Their pass-word is
" culture," and Emerson is its prophet. Then,
again, we have Radicals in political philosophy, in
the light of whose ideas the Radicalism of Europe
fades out and becomes Conservatism. They stand
up for their ideas in the face of every social, and
political, and mercantile influence, and count these
potent forces as mere whirling dust, that may annoy,
but can never impede, the onward march of a resist-
less army. Their battle-cry is progress, and Wendell
Phillips is its prophet. In every society these ele-
ments exist, but in Boston they are marked and mar-
shalled; and, in the language of the New Testament
—" the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans."
In Chicago and the West it is quite different. So-
ciety there is a huge floating unity, the particles of
which move and mingle in every possible form. There
is really no universally recognised class. Dives to-day
may be Lazarus to-morrow, and Lazarus to-day may
be Dives to-morrow ; with the important, and in
fact, the essential difference, that Lazarus will not
beg or accept alms from Dives, or consent to sit at
his gate—or even at his second table. The West
is to-day the only perfect democracy in the world.
The hindrances of European etiquette, the rigid
forms and ceremonies of introduction, are oftener
honoured in the breach than the observance. If the
poor man wishes to speak to the rich man, at any
time, or in any company, he does not hesitate to do
so—and in a manner that indicates obliviousness to
any thought of inequality of social position. There
is no servility in the West. There is hero-worship,
however ; but it fluctuates like the currency. It is
issued on real or supposed values, and recalled when
a cheat is discovered. Noble birth is of compara-
tively little " account." Lady Clara Vere de Vere
would find a very limited field for her flirtations
there. Her coachman would either resent her
coquetries, or accept them without undue elation as
the tenders of a true affection. The Mayflower is

held in no special reverence. It does not add an
extra cubit to a man's stature in social or in political
life to prove that he descended from a Plymouth
Rock pilgrim. Culture has no fictitious value.
Merit, in whatever sphere it may show itself, is
promptly acknowledged. These observations are
not, like the German's cavil, " created out of our
interior consciousness." They are drawn from
memories of the West, acrd almost every sentence
could be illustrated by an incident. It is needless,
however. We have done enough if we have shown
that a true Republicanism has little to fear in the
coming Western ascendancy ; and that the people
of that vast region are entitled to a higher regard
than we have hitherto been inclined to pay them.
The Western citizen is the " coming man" in our
national politics ; and we should rejoice that his
Radical, Democratic spirit is to succeed the Radical,
Aristocratic rule with which the South cursel the
country for a couple of generations.-117utchntais
awl litjlector.