THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT.--In settling the West, everybody worked shoulder to
shoulder. There were no privileged classes to be excepted from the common
toils and privations. All met on common ground, shared each other's
troubles, and assisted each other in difficult work. All were outspoken and
championed their own opinions without restraint. At few times in the
history of the civilized world has the home been a more independent unit.
Never have pioneers been more self-reliant, more able to cope with
difficulties, more determined to have their rights.
This democratic spirit is reflected in the works of western authors. It
made Mark Twain the champion of the weak, the impartial upholder of justice
to the Maid of Orleans, to a slave, or to a vivisected dog. It made him
join the school of Cervantes and puncture the hypocrisy of pretension in
classes or individuals. The Clemens family had believed in the aristocracy
of slavery, but the great democratic spirit of the West molded Mark Twain
as a growing boy. All the characters of worth in the great stories of his
young life are democratic. The son of the drunkard, the slave mother, the
crowds on the steamboats, the far western pioneers, belong to the great
democracy of man.
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