The daily Nome industrial worker., 1916-07-25
ENVIRONMENT.

No country has experienced so many changes as the United States has experienced within the past hundred years. Today it's economic status is entirely different to that which it was a century ago. It has developed an immense industrial system; it's production of wealth is enormous; great cities have sprung up everywhere and the ex- treme between the richest and the poorest is relatively greater than the world has ever seen.
 In the past it was an isolated frontier republic with an immense amount of land open to settlers. Its manufactures were negligible and mostly done by hand or rudimenta- ry machinery. Communication be- tween distant points was slow ana difficult. Travel was matter of months. With other countries com munication was so restricted as to be hardly worth taking into account There was no very great wealth and
 little very great poverty. Every
 thing tended to make the people
 herein strongly individualistic ana
 independent. The change in condi-
 tions is familiar to every school boy and the man in the street knows il
 so well that it is part of hi every day thoughts.
 But what the man in the street tdoes not know is that ideas have changed with that changing econo- mic status of the country and that human beings vary their views with their environment.
 The Fourth of July orator seeks for his inspiration today just the same as did those of preceding gen. erations in the spirit of '76, in the Declaration of Independence and iu the American constitution.
 All of those things reflected the spirit of an age which is totally different to the present and it is just as important that we observe the changing viewpoint as we do the changing industrial conditions which haev created it.
 As a matter of hard fact the avst masses may have changed their ideas consciously but little, but their ideas change for them because those who are supreme in an indus trial organization like society today, create those ideas and make the , masse accept them as their own.
 The other day there was put on for example a motion picture of , story that has already appeared ill novel form. This is "Graustark". It is written by an American. II idealizes two things. The European system of militarism and monarchy and the American system of great and leisure weary rich Americans. Both fascinate and if the play be- comes half as popular as the novei it will have great run.
 The enormous production of wealth and the possession of it has enabled a number of Americans to spend most of their time in Europe. Europe has an established lackey and menial system. It has come down from the feudal system. Ana it appealed to the rich Americans who had not been accustomed to it to such an extent in their town country unless when they import it. They find that as wealthy Americans {, they afforded pickings to an ee- fete nobility and they are treated . with delightful deference by the entire lackey world and they ob- . tain an obsequious service that is f grateful and comforting to them q that they believe ( their republicanism has been un- z Inter-marriage of the very r rich in America with the titled of l Europe, constant association with a European aristocracy, has gradually t produced a condition in the United S States when the wealthy do their Il best to initiate it here. The reason f for that effort to initiate is be- q cause their entire viewpoint is h changed. They demand the same f service from their me- n 1ials and from their lackeys as they a 'eceive in Europe and when they i,