Excerpt from Footprints of Four Centuries: The Story of the American People; Comprising the Important Events, Episodes, and Incidents, Which Make Up the Marvelous Record From Columbus to the Present Time

We talk a great deal about our power but we do not realize it we cannot realize it until we understand what it is which gives us power. We use a great many figures to convey an impression of our acreage and crops; but it is the farmer, the mechanic and the merchant who are the real capital of the country. Their character, energy, intelligence, thrift and practical sagacity constitute our real wealth the wealth which is not subject to the fluctuations of the market or the untimely conditions of the weather. This volume tells the story of material growth as fully and more comprehensively than most books but it tells also the story of America as it is written in the life, character and habits of the American man and woman.

To know the American you must know his ancestry and how he came where he now is that record is made here with a broad completeness which brings out the immense variety and volume of race force and character behind the people on this continent. To know the American you must know what religious, social and political influences shaped and moulded the lives of his forefathers; those influences are all marked and traced here. To know the American of to-day you must know what experiences have befallen him on this Side the ocean, how he has fared and what he has accomplished; accordingly his history is fully spread out in these pages, and his explorations, settlements, wars, growth are told, not in detail but so as to cover the ground strongly and effectively. To know the American you must know what he is doing to-day; where his work is and how he does it; how he travels what inventions he uses what mechanical genius he displays what books he reads what church he attends what schools he maintains; what his pleasures are; and how he employs his wealth. This volume answers these questions. It is at once a history, a story, an encyclopaedia of national information, and a text - book of national character. It reports travels, describes settlements, gives account of wars, traces political ideas and growth, follows the lines of trade and of national prosperity, pictures what is going on in the Shop, the office, the church, the school, the mine, the garden, the grain field, the home. It supplies the historic background of American life, and against this background it spreads out that life in broad, clear lines of growth and activity. It is the story of America, but it is still more the story of the American. Well done or ill-done, it aims at nothing less than to Show the American as he lives and works on the continent which he has conquered by Sheer force of energy and intelligence.

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