This is an American." Although the foregoing is one of the first, it is also one of the most explicit descriptions of the fundamental American; and it deserves to be analyzed with some care.

According to this French convert the American is a man, or the descendant of a man, who has emigrated from Europe chiefly because he expects to be better able in the New World to enjoy the fruits of his own labor.

The conception implies, consequently, an Old World, in which the ordinary man cannot become independent and prosperous, and, on the other hand, a New World in which economic opportunities are much more abundant and accessible.

America has been peopled by Europeans primarily because they expected in that country to make more money more easily.

To the European immigrant--that is, to the aliens who have been converted into Americans by the advantages of American life--the Promise of America has consisted largely in the opportunity which it offered of economic independence and prosperity.
Whatever else the better future, of which Europeans anticipate the enjoyment in America, may contain, these converts will consider themselves cheated unless they are in a measure relieved of the curse of poverty.
This conception of American life and its Promise is as much alive to-day as it was in 1780.