In America, a country of greater freedom than any other, of vast spaces and wide horizons, where men from all parts and of every class gather in the hope of finding larger opportunities and more liberal chances for self-expression, this same quality is seen prevailing unweakened. Natural human characteristics in fact become stronger under freedom. Natural tendencies develop into customs which grow rigid and lifeless in time, and losing their meaning become in their turn fetters on the freedom of the very nature that produced them.