The Spirit of the Common Law

IN the highly organized urban life of today we do not always remember how near we are to the pioneer. Less than a century ago the author of the Leatherstocking tales could write of central New York as newly redeemed from the wilderness. The grandfathers of men now living were pioneers in the states formed from the Northwest Territory. The fathers of the present population of the states immediately west of the Mississippi were pioneers there and many of the present generation were brought up under pioneer conditions. Men are still living who were pioneers on the Pacific coast and the beginnings of California are no further back than the span of one life. A great and populous state of the Southwest was opened to settlement by the white man in the last decade of the nineteenth century and has been developed in the present century. The moment one passes beyond the narrow fringe of original settlements along the Atlantic coast, he has but to scratch the surface in order to find the frontier.

"There are features of American democracy," says Professor Sumner, "which are inexplicable unless one understands . . . frontier society. Some of our greatest political abuses have come from transferring to our now large and crowded cities

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