far from possessing any effective social vitality; and until the present day it has been a much more active force in political than in social life.  But whatever traditional social force it has obtained, can be traced directly to the Western pioneer Democrat.  His democracy was based on genuine good-fellowship.  Unlike the French Fraternity, it was the product neither of abstract theories nor of a disembodied humanitarianism.  It was the natural issue of their interests, their occupations, and their manner of life.  They felt kindly towards one another and communicated freely with one another because they were not divided by radical differences in class, standards, point of view, and wealth.  The social aspect of their democracy may, in fact, be compared to the sense of good-fellowship which pervades the rooms of a properly constituted club.

Their community of feeling and their ease of communication had come about as the result of pioneer life in a self-governing community.  The Western Americans were confronted by a gigantic task of overwhelming practical importance,—­the task of subduing to the needs of complicated and civilized society a rich but virgin wilderness.  This task was one which united a desirable social purpose with a profitable individual interest.  The country was undeveloped, and its inhabitants were poor.  They were to enrich themselves by the development of the country, and the two different aspects of their task were scarcely distinguished.  They felt themselves authorized by social necessity to pursue their own interests energetically and unscrupulously, and they were not either hampered or helped in so doing by the interference of the local or the national authorities.  While the only people the pioneer was obliged to consult were his neighbors, all his surroundings tended to make his neighbors like himself—­to bind them together by common interests, feelings, and ideas.  These surroundings called for practical, able, flexible, alert, energetic, and resolute men, and men of a different type had no opportunity of coming to the surface.  The successful pioneer Democrat was not a pleasant type in many respects, but he was saved from many of the worst aspects of his limited experience and ideas by a certain innocence, generosity, and kindliness of spirit.  With all his willful aggressiveness he was a companionable person who meant much better towards his fellows than he himself knew.

We need to guard scrupulously against the under-valuation of the advance which the pioneers made towards a genuine social democracy.  The freedom of intercourse and the consistency of feeling which they succeeded in attaining is an indispensable characteristic of a democratic society.  The unity of such a state must lie deeper than any bond established by obedience to a single political authority, or by the acceptance of common precedents and ideas.  It must be based in some measure upon an instinctive familiarity of association, upon a quick communicability of sympathy,