HDRider
Well-known member
Excerpt from:
Walter Prescott Webb President of the Association, 1957 Presidential address delivered at the annual dinner of the American Historical Association, the Mayflower Hotel, Washington, D.C., December 29, 1958. Published in American Historical Review 64:2 (January 1959): 265-80.
By the discoveries the sovereigns of Europe acquired tide to all the lands of the Great Frontier. Unable to use so much land, these sovereigns began dispersing it to the people, letting it sift down in townships, leagues, and quarter sections, eventually to small people.
This gigantic land dispersal went on constantly from 1600 to 1900, three booming centuries when wealth was moving vertically, from the sovereign downward to the people, making them economically independent and politically free. When the frontier closed, the sovereign had nothing more to give, and then he began the reverse process of taking, not from the frontier, but from some of the people in order to have something to give to others. In short, wealth began making a complete vertical circuit instead of flowing in one direction.
This vertical circulation today supplements the horizontal circulation so precious to free enterprisers and keeps it going. If this idea of the dual movement of wealth is true--and it seems obvious once it is pointed out--it should, I thought, have far-reaching implications for the study of modern economics.
http://www.historians.org/about-aha-and ... scott-webb
Walter Prescott Webb was a 20th-century U.S. historian and author noted for his groundbreaking historical work on the American West. As president of the Texas State Historical Association, he launched the project that produced the Handbook of Texas.
Born: April 3, 1888, Panola County, TX
Died: March 8, 1963, Austin, TX
Education: University of Texas at Austin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Prescott_Webb
Walter Prescott Webb President of the Association, 1957 Presidential address delivered at the annual dinner of the American Historical Association, the Mayflower Hotel, Washington, D.C., December 29, 1958. Published in American Historical Review 64:2 (January 1959): 265-80.
By the discoveries the sovereigns of Europe acquired tide to all the lands of the Great Frontier. Unable to use so much land, these sovereigns began dispersing it to the people, letting it sift down in townships, leagues, and quarter sections, eventually to small people.
This gigantic land dispersal went on constantly from 1600 to 1900, three booming centuries when wealth was moving vertically, from the sovereign downward to the people, making them economically independent and politically free. When the frontier closed, the sovereign had nothing more to give, and then he began the reverse process of taking, not from the frontier, but from some of the people in order to have something to give to others. In short, wealth began making a complete vertical circuit instead of flowing in one direction.
This vertical circulation today supplements the horizontal circulation so precious to free enterprisers and keeps it going. If this idea of the dual movement of wealth is true--and it seems obvious once it is pointed out--it should, I thought, have far-reaching implications for the study of modern economics.
http://www.historians.org/about-aha-and ... scott-webb
Walter Prescott Webb was a 20th-century U.S. historian and author noted for his groundbreaking historical work on the American West. As president of the Texas State Historical Association, he launched the project that produced the Handbook of Texas.
Born: April 3, 1888, Panola County, TX
Died: March 8, 1963, Austin, TX
Education: University of Texas at Austin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Prescott_Webb
