needs of those days, are entirely unfit in these. To date we have treated ourselves to first aid only.

It is not enough to let nature take its course, nor to rely on the undisturbed operation of economic law to cure such maladjustments to a new environment. Men do not need to blunder blindly through each seismic epoch of history. What is required is wise and positive leadership. The politician with his ear to the ground must give place to the statesman with his eye to the future. As Sir James Stewart said of the Industrial Revolution in 1796, "It becomes the business of the statesman to interest himself so far in the consequences, as to provide a remedy for the inconveniences resulting from the sudden alteration."

Yet at this very crisis in the history of the United States, the political parties are peculiarly adrift. Their platforms and their policies when in power are nearly indistinguishable, and they are divided within themselves by schisms and revolts. Their leaders have become followers whose principal purpose seems to be to perpetuate themselves in office, and to that end to take no decided stand nor decisive action, but to compromise among the demands of the most clamourous. The choice of the voters has been between men, not between principles. That this choice does not satisfy the people is clearly shown by the large number of established political reputations which have been suddenly upset and by the number of unknown and unqualified candidates who have taken the places of veterans. This turbulent condition is natural to times of discontent because many old representatives are found no longer to represent adequately their constituents. Ability and experience are too frequently not joined to alertness nor to a sincere sympathy with the desires and difficulties of the voters. The rebellion signifies only discontent, not revolution, and it is, as usual, fruitless at the beginning. No constructive programme nor real leadership results from such disorganized ebullitions. It is a period of little, untried men, petty politics, blocs, radical theories, old errors in new guises, and of a general lack of working unanimity.

Judging by the past these phenomena are the symptoms of a changing political alignment, of a period of solution from which new compounds will be precipitated. Habit, uncertainty and

inapprehensiveness delay the realignment. But the time must come and come soon when the new differentiation will appear, and the issues will again be sharply joined between two major parties.

Along what line will the new cleavage reappear? Will it be between sections or between classes? Is the future development of party government in this country to be based on the classic distinction between Conservative and Radical, or is it to be based on the clash of interest between the Agricultural and the Industrial sections? Hitherto it has tended more toward sectional lines, based originally upon opposed economic interests and perpetuated by the acrimony of a civil conflict.

Our country is almost a continent in itself. This fact has always threatened the possibility of a gradual disintegration such as has occurred in Europe. The interests of the sections are diverse far more so than is generally appreciated. Some have no resources except their man power; others have vast natural resources which they are wasting by too rapid private exploitation; while still others lack nothing so much as man power to exploit theirs. Some have a plethora of capital, while others starve for lack of it. There are the creditor sections and the debtor sections. Nature, man and the stage of development show almost as wide a range of diversity in the United States as is found on any other continent. Nevertheless, inured to the habit of unity and coöperation, broken only by one appeal to force, we have in the past managed to compromise our differences, or have allowed the densely populated to overrule the sparsely settled districts.

To a large extent this half century of internal peace has been due to conditions which are now rapidly passing away. The manner of settlement of the Trans-Mississippi territory defined for a time its political character. The South colonized with its poorest white population; the North with its best, combined with the most substantial and consanguineous of foreign immigrants. Sons of Southern planters stayed at home, as was suitable to a landed aristocracy. It was the "poor whites" and the mountaineers who settled the tier of Southwestern States across the Mississippi Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana-and who

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filtered into the wilderness of Texas and the Indian Territory "before the War". The Missouri Compromise established the political cast of this section. After the Civil War there overflowed from the prosperous, growing North, where landowning was but unpretentious farming, a virile stock of younger sons to people the West. Waves of early immigration, composed of "'48" Germans and later of Scandinavians, broke over the East and poured into the Upper Mississippi Valley. The mass was so great that it spread down into the area engrossed by the South, changed the character of Missouri, occupied Kansas and Nebraska and, at the last, took much of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona, nearly balanced the Southerners in Texas, and, when Oklahoma was opened, rapidly outnumbered the Southerners there.

As a result of the then recent schism between the South and North it was but natural that each group of settlers should have retained its own heritage of political tradition, and that the new States of the last half century should have been added to the Republican or Northern column. Now, however, that these Trans-Mississippi colonies have become full-fledged commonwealths, arrived at manhood's estate, they will display more tendency to think for themselves, to forget the link with their paternity and to exchange early acquired predilections for an indigenous political programme suited to their needs and genius.

The danger of sectional disintegration is not imaginary. In so far as the character of these great districts is fixed and the types of development diverge, discord is more likely to increase than decrease and the threat of separation to become more imminent. Great size is a source of weakness as well as of strength, and the bonds which hold together a highly specialized congeries must strengthen as the mass increases, or the biological tendency towards scission comes into play.

It is therefore desirable for the future unity of the United States that the distinction between the two major political groups should be directed as rapidly as possible toward the classic lines of Conservatism and Liberalism, or Radicalism, and that the appeal of party policy should be to the native bent, temperament and circumstances of the individual regardless of

his whereabouts. Only in this way can the constructive forces in the nation be knit together politically as they are in other ways. But if the Republican party is to retain its hold, and the growth of an Agricultural-Industrial schism is to be inhibited, then the political power of this adolescent Western civilization must be conceded and a way must be found by which the needs of its preponderant Conservative class, the farmer-proprietor, can be made to coincide with those of the Conservative classes in the industrial sections. Then too, as a happy by-product, it is not impossible that the first real rent in the Solid South might ensue from a sincere effort towards rapprochement on the part of the Republican party.

Before discussing the definite programme which such a movement would require, it is advisable to examine in detail the various districts, or groups of States, to determine their economic character, their past and present political leanings and their political power. The following summary divides the States, not quite according to accepted, but by economically homogeneous, grouping.

New England-Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island: The manufacturing population exceeds the agricultural in all these States, and only in Maine and Vermont is the agricultural portion more than onequarter of those engaged in gainful occupations. There are little or no natural resources. In all but Maine and Vermont over half the population is urban. These are the ancient, rockribbed Republican States, where sectional interests seem to outweigh all other political considerations. New England is the original "bloc"-the counterpart of the "Solid South". Senators, Republican, 10 to 2; Representatives, Republican 26 to 6, as against 30 to 2 in the Sixty-Seventh Congress.

Industrial Section-New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania; Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois; Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia: The manufacturing population exceeds the agricultural in all these States except West Virginia, and only in Indiana and West Virginia is the agricultural population over one-quarter of the workers. In Pennsylvania and West Virginia over one-tenth of the working population is engaged in mining.

Agriculture is still important in the western section and most of these States are actively exploiting great stores of natural wealth

coal, oil and iron. All but West Virginia show a majority of urban population. Historically this section has been Republican, though Ohio and Indiana have been considered pivotal States and Maryland is torn between its generic Democracy and its present interests. At the present time, while powerful centres of "boss" infection confuse the prognosis, it seems that the new alignment between Conservative and Radical is making its first appearance here and that it will be increasingly difficult in the future to carry this region on grounds of sectional appeal or to secure its vote as a unit on any issue. Senators, Republican, 12 to 8; Representatives, Republican, 116 to 61, as against 160 to 16 in the Sixty-Seventh Congress.

Agrarian Section-Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa; Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska: The agricultural exceeds the manufacturing population in all these States except Wisconsin. Wisconsin may be regarded as the border between industry and farming, for its agricultural population is still well over a quarter of all workers. In Minnesota and Missouri, as well, manufacturing is sufficiently developed to employ over a quarter of the workers. Nevertheless all these States have a majority of rural inhabitants. It is the great district of homeowners. Natural resources are of real importance in Minnesota and Kansas. Politically this is the errant section. In the south it espoused Free Silver in the Populist days and has since vacillated towards Democracy. In the north its vagaries have been toward Insurgent Republicanism. It is perhaps the pivotal section of the future, but on social questions it will always be fundamentally Conservative in character. Senators, Republican, 12 to 1; Representatives, Republican, 50 to 15, as against 66 to 2 in the Sixty-Seventh Congress.

Solid South-Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida; Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky; Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas: In all these States the agricultural population exceeds the manufacturing, and only in Florida is the number engaged in manufacturing over one-quarter of the workers. The important natural resources are timber east of the