Book Description

Excerpt from Holland: The Birthplace of American Political, Civic and Religious Liberty; An Historical Essay This is the age of fast accumulations. The impulse of the times seems to drive us irresistibly to admire everything of huge proportions. The "Cult of the Immense" finds many worshippers. The directors of a bank proudly publish their total deposits, assets and liabilities, and the more impressive these figures the safer the interests of the depositors are supposed to be. A city publishes the number of its inhabitants, and when that number has increased far beyond the growth reasonably to be expected there is great local rejoicing; when the census shows simply a healthy growth, a natural evolution, there is disappointment, if not intense gloom. The citizens' pride and happiness seem actually to be threatened. And as it is with banks and cities, so it is also with states and countries. But is the individual depositor really better off because his bank has assumed mammoth proportions? Is the individual citizen of New York more fortunately situated because the city has four million instead of two million inhabitants? Is the average suburbanite happier because his little village is annexed to a large city, and real estate speculators have reaped a big harvest? And is the citizen of Sleeswyck economically, morally or mentally benefited because the country of his nativity belongs to a huge empire instead of to a small kingdom? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.