It
is the dominancy of the social, democratic, national spirit of the valley
--the supremacy of the average, the useful man, his power and self-
sufficiency when standing squarely, firmly upon the earth. It was the
secret of the great wrestler Antaeus, the son of Terra, that he could not
be thrown even by Hercules so long as his feet touched the earth. How
intimately filial to the earth and neighborly the middle-west pioneers
were has been suggested. And it was the secret of their success that they
stood, every man in his own field, on his own feet, and wrestled with his
own arms in primitive strength and virtue and self-reliant ingenuity.
Democracy did not theorize much, and when it did it stumbled. If it had
indulged freely in the abstractions of its practices, it would doubtless
have suffered the fate of Antaeus, who was finally strangled in mid-air by
a giant who came over the mountains.
As it was, this valley civilization apotheosized the average man. Mr.
Herbert Croly, in his "Promise of American Life," makes this picture of
him: "In that country [the very valley of which I am writing] it was sheer
waste to spend much energy upon tasks which demanded skill, prolonged
experience, high technical standards, or exclusive devotion.
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