The Promise of American Life | Page 8

any
other, and it may well be proud of its achievement. That the American
political and economic system has accomplished so much on behalf of
the ordinary man does constitute the fairest hope that men have been
justified in entertaining of a better worldly order; and any higher social
achievement, which America may hereafter reach, must depend upon
an improved perpetuation of this process. The mass of mankind must

be aroused to still greater activity by a still more abundant satisfaction
of their needs, and by a consequent increase of their aggressive
discontent.
The most discriminating appreciation, which I have ever read, of the
social value of American national achievement has been written by Mr.
John B. Crozier; and the importance of the matter is such that it will be
well to quote it at length. Says Mr. Crozier in his chapter on
"Reconstruction in America," in the third volume of his "History of
Intellectual Development": "There [in America] a natural equality of
sentiment, springing out of and resting on a broad equality of material
and social conditions, has been the heritage of the people from the
earliest times.... This broad natural equality of sentiment, rooted in
equal material opportunities, equal education, equal laws, equal
opportunities, and equal access to all positions of honor and trust, has
just sufficient inequality mixed with it--in the shape of greater or less
mental endowments, higher or lower degrees of culture, larger or
smaller material possessions, and so on--to keep it sweet and human;
while at the same time it is all so gently graded, and marked by
transitions so easy and natural, that no gap was anywhere to be
discovered on which to found an order of privilege or caste. Now an
equality like this, with the erectness, independence, energy, and
initiative it brings with it, in men, sprung from the loins of an imperial
race is a possession, not for a nation only, but for civilization itself and
for humanity. It is the distinct raising of the entire body of a people to a
higher level, and so brings civilization a stage nearer its goal. It is the
first successful attempt in recorded history to get a healthy, natural
equality which should reach down to the foundations of the state and to
the great masses of men; and in its results corresponds to what in other
lands (excepting, perhaps, in luxury alone) has been attained only by
the few,--the successful and the ruling spirits. To lose it, therefore, to
barter it or give it away, would be in the language of Othello 'such deep
damnation that nothing else could match,' and would be an irreparable
loss to the world and to civilization."
Surely no nation can ask for a higher and more generous tribute than
that which Mr. Crozier renders to America in the foregoing quotation,

and its value is increased by the source from which it comes. It is
written by a man who, as a Canadian, has had the opportunity of
knowing American life well without being biased in its favor, and who,
as the historian of the intellectual development of our race, has made an
exhaustive study of the civilizations both of the ancient and the modern
worlds. Nothing can be soberly added to it on behalf of American
national achievement, but neither should it be diminished by any
important idea and phrase. The American economic, political, and
social organization has given to its citizens the benefits of material
prosperity, political liberty, and a wholesome natural equality; and this
achievement is a gain, not only to Americans, but to the world and to
civilization.
III
HOW THE PROMISE IS TO BE REALIZED
In the preceding section I have been seeking to render justice to the
actual achievements of the American nation. A work of manifest
individual and social value has been wrought; and this work, not only
explains the expectant popular outlook towards the future, but it
partially determines the character as distinguished from the continued
fulfillment of the American national Promise. The better future,
whatever else it may bring, must bring at any rate a continuation of the
good things of the past. The drama of its fulfillment must find an
appropriate setting in the familiar American social and economic
scenery. No matter how remote the end may be, no matter what
unfamiliar sacrifices may eventually be required on its behalf, the
substance of the existing achievement must constitute a veritable
beginning, because on no other condition can the attribution of a
peculiar Promise to American life find a specific warrant. On no other
condition would our national Promise constitute more than an
admirable but irrelevant moral and social aspiration.
The moral and social aspiration proper to American life is, of course,
the aspiration vaguely described by the word democratic;