Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1901 — About Modern Americans. [ARTICLE]

About Modern Americans.

"But the American army is much larger than it was. It seems to me it grew very quickly. Only a short time ago I read it was less than 50,000, now it is 100,000 or more.” I told him that 100,000 was the maximum; that the minimum was much less. “But you build great battleships—the best in any nation.” I agreed to this. “It is a pity you think you need any battleships. Alter the Pleiad the writers America produced in the civil war you can now only show as your most brilliant brain, Carnegie, the millionaire. (He pronounced the word Carneji.) You had Thoreau, Ballou, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier and Walt Whitman. It was your Homeric age. Then rose the Achilles among statesmen, Abraham Lincoln. All these were a giant constellation. Your war fever is over, but gold has you now. Your great men are your millionaires.”— Count Tolstoi.