Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/193

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THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT
185

with vast populations when European countries have decayed.

But it is untrue to say that, even now, these new countries have no grave problems to solve and no heavy responsibilities to bear. All new countries have their special problems, about which old countries know nothing. The United States of America is faced with at least three problems of the gravest character, and infinitely complex. The colour question is one before which the wisest heads in Christendom bow in deepest humility and prayerfulness, for they fear what the future may bring forth. The alien immigration question is one that would have destroyed the nerve and broken the heart of any nation less young and less splendidly vigorous and courageous than America, which enlarges her sympathies to the extent of adopting more than a million sons and daughters from foreign lands every year. The problem of the trust and the monopoly, with all that these imply of power to grind the faces of the poor and promote revolutions, is one which has never troubled the old countries to the extent that it must vex the new. In the solution of all these tremendous problems, which are as difficult and as complicated as any which come before the House of Commons for solution, the women of nine States of America will now take their part.