Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/39

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with a vigorous and perhaps ruthless strength, unchecked by the many feudal and social restrictions which have in this country turned the edge of its power. But owing to the circumstances there ruling—the wealth of the country and the unlimited power of expansion that its undeveloped resources have placed in the hands of its citizens—the way from the bottom to the top has been more open. The traveller there seemed to find himself in a country in which there were no bars between class and class. Those at the bottom looked on those farther up as people who had gone ahead but might be caught up and would be. There was no sense of a heavy handicap. I came in contact in a curious way with this cheerful sentiment when in a hotel in Denver in 1911. A Swedish chambermaid when I was leaving was good enough to say that she was sorry I was going because I was "nice and clean in my room." I asked her if she would like to come and be a maid in my home in England. She declined on inquiring into the possibilities of the position, but added: "I tell you what; I won't come and be a maid in your home, but I'll marry some fellow who'll make a pile, and then I'll come and stay with you." I gave her my card, and I hope and fully