Problems of population.

Abstract

Problems of Population WEhave surveyed public opinion and party politics as two distinct factors in the American national consciousness, as two factors which are seldom in complete agreement, and which are very often in sharp opposition, but which finally have to work together like an upper and lower legislative chamber in order to solve the problems of the day. We have not the space to speak minutely of all these problems themselves with which the American is at the present moment occupied; since the politics of the day lie outside of our purpose. This purpose has been to study that which is perennial in the American spirit, the mental forces which are at work, and the forms in which these work themselves out. But the single questions on which these forces operate, questions which are to-day and to-morrow are not, must be left to the daily literature. It is our task, however, to indicate briefly in what directions the most important of these problems lie. Every one of them would require the broadest sort of handling if it were to be in the least adequately presented.So many problems which in European countries occupy the foreground, and which weigh particularly on the German mind, are quite foreign to the American. Firstly, the church problem as a political one is unknown to him. The separation of church and state is so complete, and the results of this separation are viewed on all sides with so much satisfaction, that there is nowhere the least desire to introduce a change. It is precisely in strictly religious circles that the entire independence of the church is regarded as the prime requisite for the growth of ecclesiastical influence. Even the relations between the church and party politics are distinctly remote, and the semi-political movements once directed against the Catholic Church are already being somewhat forgotten.