But no man who can have a piece of land of his own, sufficient by his labour to subsist his family in plenty, is poor enough to be a manufacturer, and work for a master. Hence while there is land enough in America for our people, there can never be manufactures in any amount or value.--Writings of Benjamin Franklin: Smith Ed. Vol. IV, pp. 48–49. This was written in 1761--just a century before the Civil War! What a transition to our day--and we have but begun! In the days of Franklin, according to our best authorities, less than one out of eight of the population depended for a living on manufacturing, trade, transportation, and fisheries. As early as 1851, it was one out of five. The character of the nation had undergone a complete and sweeping change. Yet, let me repeat, the American industrialist of that day was not the serf he is to-day. In every sense, he was a free and independent man. True, he had been forced to leave the household plan for the factory plan; but yet he managed without any trouble to keep the spirit of individualism and independence thoroughly alive. Industry, in the middle of the last century, was carried on in this country in scattered individual plants, each one a little independent republic of its own. The owners generally worked in the factory and the mill. Half a dozen partners, perhaps, laboured side by side with the men in their employ. Men stepped swiftly from the position of wage workers to the independence of ownership. The doors of individual opportunity stood wide open. I would, if I dared risk tiring the reader with extended comment upon subject matter that has been handled often much better than I can handle it, dwell upon this happy phase of the making of America. For it is germane to my subject. And then, again, it is gone from us forever--gone with the happy simplicity and innocence of the youth of our nation. In its stead there has come upon us an age of industrial terror, of fierce, abnormal struggle for expansion and wealth beyond the dreams of the fathers. Often, as the years have passed, I have heard older men talk with affection of the “good old days.” I put it down to the failing memory of man, which forgets all that is ugly and repugnant, and remembers best the beautiful. When men in society spoke of the past, they seemed to me to be ignoring the many advantages of the present. As time has fled, however, I come to realize that they spoke truly. They were thinking of this “golden age,” this high mid-day of our industrial history.