The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-01-19
A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED
STATES.

The political history of the United States
has been ably told by Bancroft. Hildreth,
Henry Adams and John Fiske; Its social
history, fascinating theme, is in gradual
course of narration by Prof McMaster,
whose third volume has just been pub
lished. Prof. McMaster writes history
from the standpoint of Macaulay and John
Green. His purpose is not only to write
of war, treaties and political leaders, but.
as he said when he set about his task many
years ago, ''to describe the dress. the oc-
equations, the amusements, the literary
canons of the times; to note the change of
manners and morals; to trace the growth
of that humane spirit which abolished
punishment for debt and depressed the
discipline of prisons and of jails; to de-
scribe the rise and progress of our long
series of mechanical inventions and dis
coveries."
The great historians of Greece and Rome
tell us concerning battles, sieges; the for
tunes of warriors and statesmen. but shed
small light upon the social life of their
time. The Greek comedies of Aristoph-
anes: the plays of Terence and Plautus:
the satires of Horace, Juvenal, Martial
and Petronius Arbiter give us about all
the classic literary light that has been
shed upon the social life of the two great
nations of the ancient world. Petronius
was the Rabelais of the Rome of Nero.
The social history of France in the
middle of the sixteenth century is
told by Rabelais under the grinning
mask of rank humor and coarse satire.
The social life of Spain in the sixteenth
century shines forth in the immortal work
OF Cervantes; the social life of the eight
zenith century, under Queen Anne, is told
not in formal history, but through the
satires or Swift and Pope; in the lives of
the comic dramatists of that period. The
social life Of France under Louis XIV,
found no formal historian; but the PLAYS
of Moliere and the satires of the time let
Us largely into its mood. The anecdotal
history of the Caesars by Suetonius is one
of the few classic departures from the
formal style of heavy history, illustrated
by Thucydides and Livy, unless we except
Tscitus, who wrote history with the eve of
critic. censor and satirist rather than of
a narrator.
With Macaulay began the modern school
of historian, who considers the social
history of great people quite as worthy
OF recital and preservation as the mere
narration Of military and political events,
and Professor McMaster is writing the
history of the United States after the
method of Macaulay, which reached it's
perfection IN Green's history of England.
and he has succeeded. therefore, in telling
rs what no other American histories have
told. To illustate: Take his story of the
turnpike building enterprises of the first
years of the century. After the pioneers
of the Middle West built their log cabins,
the first demand was for roads. The great
demsnd for wheat and corn for exnort sent
thousands of pioneers westward to
the new lands. and then followed
the cry for better facilities for the
transportation of crops 10 market.
The states were wholly unable
to meet these demands, for the heaviest
taxes they could have imposed would
not have suilieed to cut out half the roads,
or build half the bridges. or clear half the
streams necessary for easily communicate
ing lines between the new villages"
After the states had done ali they could
to furnish roads private corporations were
organized 10 make the necessary further
improvements, receiving > charter from
the state with power to levy tolls Thus
came into existence the turnpikes, and
before the hrst decade of the new century
had closed most Of the well-settled states
were voting money and selling lands IN
aid Of frontier roads, while stock CON-
panies were everywhere being formed to
build turnpikes connecting interior towns
with the seaooard or with great navigahle
streams.
sum almost equal 70 the domestic debt
as the close Of the Revolution had thus