The Republic of Turmoil
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6540506/site/newsweek/
The 'good old days' never were. The supposedly placid past, a superb
new history book reminds us, was just as jarring as the disruptive
present
By Robert J. Samuelson
Newsweek
Nov. 29 issue - Picture yourself in the mid-1840s. It's an exciting
time. Fifteen years earlier, railroads barely existed. In 1830 there
were only 23 miles of track. By 1840, there were 2,818; by 1850,
9,021. Steamboats ply major rivers—another recent development. In 1844
Samuel Morse had introduced the telegraph by sending this message from
Washington to Baltimore:
"What hath God wrought!" For some, it was all too much. "The world is
going too fast," wrote one old-timer, a 69-year-old former mayor of
New York named Philip Hone. "Railroads, steamers, packets, race
against time ... Oh, for the good old days of heavy post coaches and
speed at the rate of six miles an hour!"
Robert J. Samuelson
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John Steele Gordon
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