William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

Chapter 35: the situation.

from New York to San Francisco, from Chicago to New Orleans, every town and hamlet in America is suffering from panic; a loose, unscientific term, explaining nothing, and raising false hopes. A panic is supposed to be an accident. Accidents come and go, and, like the winds and waves, are treated as phenomena beyond control. What cannot be cured, we say, must be endured.

In what respects our personal good we act on wiser instincts. No one talks of gout as an accident, of surfeit as an accident. When Nature checks our excesses by a twinge of pain, we know that we have done wrong, and take her warning as a guide. Suppose this panic in America is no other than a natural pause and stop?

What are the secrets of American growth? People and Land. Up to this date there have been