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became a sort of "paradise" for the arbitious and unemployed:
 
there every freeman who could pay his way across the Atlantic
 
bad fifty to a hundred acres of wild land crowded with game,
 
for his temporary support; and the still greater number of
 
indentured servants who crossed the ocean were likewise
 
guaranteed free homesteads at the end of their terms of
 
service.  Nor was it possible for European overlords of 
 
America to deny their emigrating folk that personal liberty
 
which all rational men demand.  Laws and regulations restrain-
 
ing men's freedom simply could not be enforced.  Here was
 
a great moral force in all western economic life till free
 
lands in the United States were exhausted in 1893.  The ab-
 
sence of this factor is a basic cause of the unprecedented
 
disaster which now surrounds us all.
 
 
                            II.                             
 
 
Another and a stranger influence operates now to
 
thwart efforts at recovery everywhere.  Since 1870 the sense
 
of personal independence on the part of the senses of urban
 
folk has declined.  Amazing inventions and the changing tastes
 
and desires of men have set new standards.  One must live in
 
a city now to be a decent citizen.  He loves the roar and
 
racket of the factory, crowded street and the baseball
 
field; he must look at the movie screens as often as possi-
 
ble, and ride on the crowded trolley on Sunday to commiser-
 
ate the misfortune of his degenerate cousin who still labore
 
on the land.  The city worker perfers an attic in a crowded,
 
filty "West or East Side" to the independence of a country
 
 
home