Notes on Roosevelt's America
THE immediate effect of the New Deal upon my mind is a kind of intellectual dissociation — perhaps I might call it ambivalence. I am optimistic in the synthesis, pessimistic in the analysis; I take the first step boldly and confidently, but the next one drives me into a thicket. I do not like this state of mind, I do not think it particularly admirable; I would rather be skeptical about the general outcome of the reconstruction and believe deeply in some of its achievements. Wholesale cheerfulness and retail depreciation, this sounds badly; but even the prospect of a final bankruptcy does not change this double-headed trend of mine. My incoherence is not just a kind of insurance policy which might give me a feeling of mental consolation whatever turn the events may take. It is perhaps a bit of American mentality which is, to my satisfaction, taking root in my mind — just enough to make me more attached to these people and maybe better able to understand them.
In recent times other nations have made a leap in the dark more or less voluntarily, but none, I think, has cut quite such a caper as that which characterizes the present American adventure. A revolutionary situation retains within itself the alternatives which it arose to crush, and must be intolerant lest one of these alternatives prove too strong. If Lenin falters, Kerensky or the Tsars may come back; if a Fascist movement fails, communism or democracy may succeed. A revolution always develops to a point of absolute cleavage. Different programmes of social and economic life are brought into direct conflict. Once the fight is over, philosophers and historians will assert that the defeated party was dead before the fight began. Nevertheless, at the decisive moment, alternatives there certainly were.
The New Deal is a revolution that has been going on for several months and yet appears to have no alternatives. Many intellectuals are afraid of this disheartening void, and want to limit their vision with horse blinkers, so that they may speculate at leisure about the alternatives to the right or to the left. This American revolution is peculiar. One can even doubt whether it is a revolution at all, but it is altering the standards of wealth and morality so deeply that I do not know what else it might be called. On the other hand, to an observer from the Old World, the New Deal looks more like a mass migration through unexplored lands than like a conflict of classes or groups.
No visible limit seems to check the American effort either in the national or in the international field. The country is so vast, the wealth so great, the economic collapse so disastrous, that anything can be attempted. The feeling of self-sufficiency easily grows into arrogance, especially toward Europe. The consciousness of disaster becomes a determination to attempt bold and unlimited experiments. The very magnitude of the leap becomes a source of excitement and pride. What other nation would dare do this? What other nation, even after wild revolutions, ever left so few of the fundamental stones unturned? Americans have always been inwardly torn between love and hatred of bigness, and now, even though their rugged individualism is menaced, they seem to be hypnotized by the enormity of the experiment which some of their fellow men have started.
Only a nation of gamblers could conceive and afford the New Deal. A revolution without alternatives, a record-breaking leap into the dark, this is something that could be undertaken only by a people accustomed to stockmarket speculation in the grand manner. The Roosevelt administration is attempting a kind of socialization of the gambling mentality; the stake is the creation of a new system for the distribution of opportunities among the American people. This aim is pressed forward in the old glorious way of a nation of poker players. It is the great gamble to end gambling. Perhaps, if the experiment succeeds, the people who pass through this great trial will have strengthened their individual sense of self-reliance and will valiantly gamble again; if the experiment fails, the people will gamble as much as they ever did.
I have no authority whatsoever for judging whether the post-Turner historians and publicists are guilty of exaggeration in giving such overwhelming importance to the pioneer or frontier experience of the American people. But even if these theories are not correct as an interpretation of the past, they are a meaningful and poetical interpretation of the moral laws which actually rule the land. I do not know how true it is that some fundamental aspects of the American character were shaped when the pioneers faced the wilderness, but I should say that the test of the wilderness is also the test which holds good for admission to a full life in this country — that is to say, a capacity to hope and to stick to one’s goal. The longer the depression lasts, the harder Mr. Roosevelt and his administration work to transform the despair of the people into positive action, the more apparent these American traits are becoming. The greatest assets are still sheer will and grim determination; these help the people to keep their courage and to work buoyantly when darkness is all about them. Muddling through, and fumbling through, they hold to their path where people of other countries would have been submerged in doubt and isolation. Americans succeed so thoroughly in preserving their own particular mentality in desperate times that even the movement for planning can be changed into a plunge toward the unforeseen. They are willing to take a holiday from systematic reasoning even when there are college professors at the helm of the nation.
It is difficult to follow any of the problems that the administration is facing or bringing into the foreground without getting lost in a labyrinth. How will it be possible to reach a permanent adjustment between agricultural and industrial prices, when the industries have the burden of augmented wages and agriculture remains in its traditional form of production? If the subsidies to the farmers and the limitations of crops aim to solve this difficulty, the general public as taxpayer and as consumer will pay the bill, and the capacity to absorb agricultural products will diminish. Who is going to bear the cross of the whole experiment? Farmers, workers, capitalists, consumers? How can the farmers reap the real benefit of the inflation through an augmented export of agricultural products, when the NRA closes foreign markets? How is it possible to cast aspersion upon the profit motive for a given period of time and then to remove it, in the same way as trade barriers are to be lowered and gold is to flow freely in the happy days of the Definite Recovery? Perhaps it will be possible to find some rock under the moving sands of these disheartening ‘ifs5; but what will there be to rest on, when the nation tumbles into the abyss of a new inflation, but economic and social collapse?
And yet, there is something in the whole experiment that one cannot easily dismiss. Although analysis of the individual problems is necessary, one has the strange feeling that there is some injustice in such an analytical approach to the situation, for from certain angles all the discordant tones sound as though they blended in harmony. This country is working to remake her Constitution. Or, perhaps, not to remake, but to enlarge it, to establish the foundation of some new basic rights of the citizens on ground so firm that the usual oscillation of political parties will not shake it.
The nonpartisan technique of the official leaders of American labor can be explained by their desire to go back through the maze of American politics in order to reach Independence Hall and the Founders. Unhappily, these leaders lost their way, delayed by the courts, by the petty necessities of political bargaining, or by the rackets. Mr. Roosevelt is now striking out for the goal which the others have missed.
The experience of Europe has repeatedly shown that a political party entrusted with the defense and representation of the workers can easily become strong enough to prevent rule by other parties, but remains too weak and inexperienced to take upon itself the full responsibility of power. The socialist parties in Europe have been one of the preponderant causes of the breakdown of democratic institutions. They were revolutionary in their programmes and words, opportunistic in practice, democratic without conviction, liberal in a very small degree. Having found themselves at the centre of the democratic alignment, they provided it with a most insecure defense when they were assaulted by the extremes or by the fears that they themselves had aroused.
President Roosevelt will deserve the gratitude of the country if he succeeds in writing social legislation into the statutes and into the constitutional tradition of the Union, exempting democratic institutions from the dubious support and weak defense of an inflated Socialist Party. For the time being, his administration is working as if it were socialistic and is trying to cement the rights of labor upon the rock of stable laws. If he succeeds, it will be almost a miracle, because even in the most highly developed industrial countries labor is becoming a minority; its alliance with the peasants and the whitecollar groups proves unworkable, and employers have just begun to realize how easily it can be shackled.
Nobody really knows the ways that are going to be trodden by the administration in the pursuit of its goal, or how far they may lead. This perplexity, which is undoubtedly unpleasant, has a different character in America from what it might have in other nations. In some countries of inadequate democratic training, concentration of power almost inevitably leads to dictatorship, and dictatorship to tyranny. Other peoples, after living long in darkness, have become convinced that no beneficent light will again reach them, or else that they will be visited by a catastrophic stroke of lightning before the darkness can be dissolved. The American people, on the contrary, bear this temporary darkness with the same charming grace and wise candor that they often show in their conversation when they quietly assert, ‘I don’t know.’ This does not imply that they are content to remain in ignorance, but is merely a statement that about that point, at the moment, the person who speaks does not happen to be informed. But he is confident that someone knows the answer to-day, and to-morrow he himself may know the President’s policy better. In any case, in the fall of this year the citizens will have a chance to express something of what they feel. The cumulative effects of ignorance on the part of a large number of individuals create some collective uneasiness, but no serious perturbation, no desperate desire for a mystical light.
This accounts somehow for the twilight of the American horizon today when so many secrets are kept closed in the President’s mind. Still, as Mr. Morgenthau said, the sun will rise again to-morrow and the birds will sing.
The unique capacity which the American people have of plunging in the dark is only matched by their genius for accommodating themselves in the dark, like cats. Thus they had prohibition and speak-easies; they now have the Blue Eagle and chiseling, codes and rackets. This amazing capacity for bold collective adventure and for uncanny individual adjustment has left its mark on their character and created a feeling of invulnerability like that of people who jump trustingly from a burning building into the net below. There is always the danger of breaking one’s neck, but up to now the net has proved pretty well knotted.
The great experiments of legal regulation offer the best example of the collective adventure and the individual reactions. If the law prohibits something that the public needs, the underworld will run the new unlawful ‘ public utilities’; if the law proposes to the social groups a pattern of behavior which is inadequate or too lofty, again the activities of the underworld will register the maladjustment. The water level of official legality separates more or less arbitrarily the two types of organization for the satisfaction of social needs, and it is always difficult to forecast whether the upper or the lower level will profit from an innovation. The system of rackets and the chaos of economic life arouse the desire to face reality and to shape codes for the relations of capital, labor, and consumers, but the codes are merely proposals asking the conformity of social groups for the ratification of decisions already made; if people will not conform, the rackets grow stronger. A great humorist, a Brooklyn judge, acquitted some laundry racketeers because, he said, under the NRA they could use their talents for the greater good of society.
Between upperworld and underworld, legal rules and social practice, collective adventures and individual adjustments, Americans have found wide areas for playing and experimenting, and they seem to enjoy the sport fully. They are changeable in their programmes and consistent in their habits. By keeping distinct their personalities as direct or indirect legislators and their individual tastes, they could, until a short time ago, vote dry and drink wet; now they heartily applaud the New Deal and eventually they do a little chiseling. It is easy for a moralist to call this attitude inconsistency or hypocrisy, but I am rather inclined to consider it a safety valve and a guarantee of a progressive and flexible democracy.
I think that in no other country of the world is it as true as here that every law is merely a proposal to the social groups. Some day, perhaps, Americans will decide that the jump from democracy to dictatorship is something that the greatest nation must not be afraid of, but, if they do, very probably they will accept a dictator just for the fun of cheating him.
On October 12 of last year, the New York Times published the news of serious troubles at the headquarters of the Khaki Shirts of America. ‘ Commander General ’ Art J. Smith was planning a march on Washington from Philadelphia, and he talked of millions of followers, but at the last moment he vanished with the ‘war chest.’ The police said that the movement was just ‘a shirt-selling racket.’ The Philadelphia cop who offered this definition must be no less great a man than the Brooklyn judge. Such a neat, sharp judgment fills me with admiration, as the proof of great moral health.
The transformation of individual interests into collective passions and of collective passions into political ideals is freely accepted in European countries, and anyone who takes the stump in politics draws some benefit from it. In this country there are many obstacles in the way of that fermentation made by the working of passions on rascality which forms the necessary leaven of every political ideal. This does not mean that rascality here is comparatively less than in other countries, but merely that it is so raw as to make it rather difficult for moral elements to absorb it. The general assumption of the profit motive sharpens the wits of the people and allows them to make judgments according to the nature of the protagonist in relation to well-defined types; their sense of humor is even more developed than their credulity, great as this is; and although any clever demagogue may attain some early success in his own social group or region, it is difficult for him to reach upper groups or wider areas. Thus social or territorial distance counterbalances the gullibility of his neighbors. Many a kingfish has been knocked down at the doors of a great metropolis, and many a city boss knows how difficult it is to spread his influence among the farmers.
This reminds me of the way my friends in the Middle West and in the South described the character of many Klan leaders: ‘People of the promoter type.’ To all who know the familiar connotation of the word ‘promoter,’ this definition is full of meaning. One sees at once the engaging personality, the high-pressure sale of memberships and promises, the enthusiasm of believers, the flight, the last loyal friends who do not give up their faith. From the screen, the suave face of William Powell offers a visual idea of how a crooked promoter looks and acts. The Americans are at times a little uneasy in handling ideas, and yet, when it comes to judging people, what is shadowy in their mentality entirely melts away, thanks to the sharp outline of some patterns of behavior which are well defined in their minds.
If the New Deal brings some lasting achievements, this country will possibly keep going with pragmatic philosophies for another couple of generations. It is a rather disturbing thought. For years and years the fundamental beliefs of the nation will be represented by such formulas as, ‘Let us try; something must be done; do not bother about principles.’ The worship of facts and of fact-finding systems will only be paralleled by the facility with which the facts of yesterday are forgotten and the systems changed. The basic laws of the country will be left at the mercy of inspired interpreters of emergencies, and the defense of freedom will be left to constitutional superstition and prejudice. This seems a rather high price for recovery. To seek victory by team action, if it is applied indiscriminately, appears as dangerous as to seek it by paying homage to different gods in order to find out which is the most miraculous.
The good luck of the American people may save the country from collapse as well as from perpetual pragmatism. If the country lives long enough on the verge of disaster, and if the final escape proves to be a narrow one, recovery may be accompanied by a lasting fear of the system, or lack of system, through which it was brought about. There is a pathetic quality in this latest urge of pragmatism to explore the borders of the area where democracy and national life are still possible, as there is a pathetic quality about some of the intellectuals recruited by the administration. With deep seriousness and funereal grace they attempt to mould facts with sour principles and climb in different directions toward the hills of recovery, where practical politicians lie in wait for expiatory lambs.
Since the end of the last century, artists all over the world have suffered from a deep dissatisfaction with the old forms of expression. Cézanne, Stravinski, Joyce, are among the outstanding leaders of this æsthetic revival; hundreds of artists have contributed to the daring work of demolition and reconstruction. Each form of art has been considered as a world in itself, as a road through which æsthetic emotion might be reached in its totality. Any contaminating relationship between forms of art or between art and philosophic thinking, dear as it was to the romantic era, was pitilessly eradicated. The accepted tradition of artistic patterns was voluntarily broken. Every obvious representation or stereotyped emotion was denied for the sake of discovering the new limits and the new intimate forms of artistic expression, and the artist learned how to face his own world bravely without the help of what Verlaine called littérature.
This gigantic cycle is far from being completed now, but when it was in its fullest swing, before the war, a group of men caught the movement in the air, discarded the process of painful elaboration of its formulas, and with admirable ease created slogans, organization, and ballyhoo. They were called the futurists, and the Italian Marinetti was their leader. For years they rampaged through the world, keeping themselves in the limelight with fine showmanship, arrogance, and resourcefulness in shocking the public. So great was their victory that every serious person, working for the renewal of his own field of art, came to be called a futurist and a follower of Marinetti.
Now that the futurist hurricane is past, it is easy to see that, among important works of modern art, not a single one was created by Marinetti or by his disciples. They appear to have been able publicity seekers who exploited and wasted certain ideas that were to find expression in a more mature form. One concludes now that, by the confusion which they engendered, they retarded more than they stimulated the development of modern art. To the many difficulties which confront a modern artist they added the obstacles which come from a vague and allembracing name.
Now, in his field of politics, President Roosevelt is not one of the people who are bewildered and thwarted by glamorous labels. This is a tremendous merit, even if it is proved that his unconcern comes from a pragmatic dislike for principles. The political futurists of Europe have seen in the sky faint signs of a complete social renewal, and they have been quick in giving to them the most hasty and thunderous expression. To bring into legal formulation the relations between employers and employees, consumers and producers, producers and producers, to assert the constitutional right of every man to a minimum standard of living, to rearrange the distribution of chances and opportunities, to organize new areas of self-government for economic or occupational groups, to create new intermediary organs between the citizens and the state — these and many more are the problems that the organization of the New State must face. The political futurists of Europe have painted their scenery with fragments taken from different projects of the New State, and, trying to preëmpt the field where modern society has to be built, they have erected there their cardboard Luna Park. So thoroughly have they impressed the imagination of the people that to approach the problems they have botched is a sure way of being labeled as their follower.
Of this Mr. Roosevelt is not afraid. This courage of his is an invaluable quality, and one can never be too emphatic about it in view of its possible effects on modern civilization. The haphazard way in which some of the American experiments are conducted, the insouciance with which some perhaps unnecessary dangers are faced — these cannot belittle the fact that for the first time in history a nation is putting her existence at stake in order to handle the problems of economic democracy, and that a complete land redemption and a gigantic programme of construction are begun in the very field where the European dictators have pitched their tents and displayed their regimented crowds.
It is indeed a desperate business to be a prophet. Against the predictions of Marx, the communist revolution took place in a country where industrial organization was still in its infancy; now the greatest attempt at social and economic reconstruction on reform lines is taking place in a country where social and economic legislation has been hampered by the staunchest conservatism. It is interesting, too, to remember that this is the same nation which, in Marx’s prophecy, was destined to be the first to reach the communistic upheaval through the fullest achievement of industrial development.
Many things, then, seem to help Americans in their effort — their vices and inveterate habits no less than their virtues. They are clever at muddling through, ready to make jumps in the dark; they have a special genius for doing enormous work in a limited time and for utilizing as zones of free experimentation the gaps between different political and social organizations. They find freedom for experimenting in the zones between law and practice, between state and federal government, between the writing of the statutes by the legislatures or by Congress and the test of them by the Supreme Court. The hardest part of the Roosevelt experiment has been between two sessions of Congress. People are so accustomed to work under pressure that I think the greatest administrators in Washington would not know what to do if they had complete powers for an indefinite period of time.
Thus the greatest experiment in building the New State is going on in the nation which has the most plastic political and social structure, the richest equipment in alarm and defense mechanisms. At times one has the feeling of losing one’s mind; but the work is serious, and Mr. Roosevelt, thank God, is not a Marinetti.
Some people say that the old times are gone forever, that the trend is more and more to the left. To-day, they say, we have control of business, to-morrow we shall have socialization. It is always difficult for me to understand these socalled laws of political necessity, which conceive history as bound to a few patterns evolved from events in other countries. I venture to hold that the Roosevelt administration marks a turning point in the history of the nation, but I should like to be more sure that hereafter the way will be straight and that the old-fashioned Republican leadership will not come back. If the farmers persist in their discontent (and I do not see how they can be contented), it seems to me that it will not be difficult to strengthen the old link between farmers and plutocracy which is the glorious foundation of the G.O.P.
This is a strange country. The boldness of the experiment as well as its psychological repercussions on individuals has brought back strange shadows of the past; some learned magicians tried to call up a new leadership, and the spirit so exorcised speaks sometimes with an accent strangely reminding one of Andrew Jackson. Some theoreticians and some enlightened politicians designed the NRA machinery, and the ruler of this machinery happened to be a General, picturesque and dynamic as an Indian fighter. Many liberals now repeat the Coolidge argument that if only 10 per cent of exports are dropped this country will become a self-supporting economic empire; and the present foreign policy is such that even the Senators who fought the Versailles treaty could scarcely have dreamt of anything more disentangling. It was amazing to see the United States recognizing Russia just at the moment when it was withdrawing recognition from all other nations.
Yes, this is a strange country. Monetary problems have such importance that every great nation has had to deal with either devaluation or revaluation, but here the radical demands of some leaders and the complicated dilatory policy of the administration gave the impression that the dollar crisis was the attack of an old gout, which afflicted and hindered the good runner in his dash to recovery. When the monetary situation reached the front page, political debate was again after the old American pattern of a conflict between debtor and creditor, small and big employer, banker and farmer. The other groups destined eventually to suffer the burden of inflation were left out of the picture. The people who hoped that the New Deal was to produce a political realignment in European terms of left and right must have been amazed to see as the first result a realignment in terms of McKinley and Bryan. It is like the ring of a familiar bell. Remember that we are in America: that this country may commit terrible blunders and face frightful dangers, but that it is still mystically united in choosing fundamental issues for political clashes and tests for different policies. Remember, above all, that during the battle one party usually takes the other’s programme or clears the way for its adoption.
Some people have called this the pendular principle of American politics. Borrowing from Morris Cohen, one would perhaps do better to call it American political polarity, represented by such contrasts as McKinley and Bryan, Wilson and Harding, Coolidge and Hearst. It may be that other forces will enter the political arena and break this extremely American and untranslatable polarity which has till now been dominant; but still I think that these new forces, like workers and consumers, will have a long way to go before reaching political articulation, if they ever do. One may answer that it is now possible to see in Washington some exceptionally able custodians of the two absentees, especially of the workers. Yet even these two forces are introduced in court by their custodians with borrowed names, the workers appearing to be consumers and the consumers unorganized or retired workers.
But, many people say, the greatest swing to the left in the European sense will be forced by the federal government itself through increasing control of economic activity, and later on through direct socialization. About this also I have grave doubts. With due respect for Mr. Hoover, I venture to say that this is scarcely a country of pure individualism, whether rugged or smooth, but rather one of social individualism. Social groups in America display such strength in self-defense as to hamper the attempt of individuals to reach the full development of personality and the attempt of the state to direct the minute actions of individuals. In other words, the individuals get both the definition and the limitation of their personality out of the fact of being admitted to or barred from certain social groups, and no great room is left to the care of society at large. Before being sure that this country is marching toward state socialism, I expect to see the most drastic federal regulations tested by the social groups. I have the feeling that even the test by a die-hard Supreme Court will seem a trifle in comparison.
Others are even more excited by the American scene than the followers of mechanistic liberalism. These people are waiting for a revolution, they want a revolution; they are the theorists of the reversible revolution. Hammering syllogisms, roaring ‘Either — or, either — or,’ they sarcastically and superciliously reject every administrative or legislative measure as petty bourgeois, halfway, Kerensky; they look for the unavoidable catastrophe and consistently await the stream of events at the unavoidable crossroad. For the moment, they seem to be more anxious about the dramatic climax at the crossroad than about the decision to turn either to the right or to the left, which, they say, will be made once and forever. Meanwhile, in the expectation of that thrilling moment, they are elated with satisfaction at being as yet unpledged. Obviously the great majority of these people are professional intellectuals. They belong to the crowd of well-informed and somehow influential persons who know everything that is going to happen, and the many things that would have happened if not prevented by a mere chance.
Three groups, I think, can be recognized among the theorists of the reversible revolution. The first is composed of innocent and melancholic people who would be opposed to either of the possible solutions that may prove successful. They would like to destroy their whole life in order to enjoy saying ‘Did n’t I tell you?’
The people of the second group, on the contrary, would accept either of the two revolutionary régimes, if firmly established. From their talk it is rather difficult to guess which tendency they would prefer; their sentences are elusive, their arguments hardened by data, cases, and facts. Concentration of capital, centralization of control, federal regulation — these metallic phrases are most frequent in their mouths; it is childish, they say, to fight against the stream of things. The Marxian critique is carefully handled by them as a double-edged knife; it is useful either for emphasizing the function and the precarious situation of the leading economic groups, or for destroying these groups. They are the aspirant fonctionnaires of the new régime, whatever it may be. Their ideals are as high as their knowledge of facts is smashing; they are inspired by the philosophy of service and by anxiety for the welfare of the people.
The men of the third group have neither sentimental prejudices nor personal interests; they are the diminutive Neroes who would like to set fire to Rome for the fun of it. They maintain personal relations with opposing groups, they convey the news and stimulate the battle; like technical consultants to the professional fighters, they have a fondness for a beautiful struggle, and they use paradoxes, hard-boiled statements, sophisticated and confused ideas, as lighted matches to be thrown in the air to start the conflagration.
The people of these three groups view political activity and political thinking as a gamble with history, in which they try to foresee the numbers that are going to be drawn in the next political lottery, and they are undoubtedly clever in trying to reduce the lottery to a choice between two numbers. It never occurs to them that politics may also mean convictions rooted within the personality and so strongly felt that even the prospect of remaining for a lifelong period in a hopeless minority does not cause dismay. Yet no political creed ever triumphed without having strengthened itself in Utopia for so long a time that it seemed almost endless.
Being very practical and matter-offact, the theorists of the reversible revolution have in their mouths all the time the Marxian terminology, no matter how remote their acquaintance with Marx’s philosophy. Indeed, I wonder why Marxian patterns have not long been popular in this country in every class of the population. Perhaps it was because of the traditional fear of looking red; maybe it was because historical materialism, since Hamilton and Madison, has been so indigenous here that there was no need of importing the European brand of it, tainted with unpalatable Hegelianism. Using the Marxian style, one can talk business and revolution at the same time, and it is hard to decide whether this Marxism is the language of the sons of business men or the password admitting groups of newcomers to American business civilization.
The intellectuals have a pathetic desire to escape the puritanical rules of pragmatic philosophy, such as loyalty to the inductive system, fanaticism for so-called facts, the birth control of ideas; and they relish in the Marxian philosophy the voluptuousness of the a priori, the deliberately partisan interpretation of reality, the monogamy with one idea, or at least with one scheme. And they can reach such thrilling heights as to declare Mr. Justice Brandeis a reactionary and the period of reforms gone forever. For there is no alternative between ‘either’ and ‘or.’
‘Do you think that we have democracy in this country?’ The repetition of this question, with variants, annoys me. I do not believe that it is strictly necessary, in order to have some sort of democracy or liberalism, for many men to be real democrats or liberals. I think it is possible to conceive a liberal structure in which society is free from the professional liberal: the smaller the number of priests in any religion, the better. There is no man, however liberal, who in certain moments may not become a menace to liberalism, and no boss, however tyrannical, who in certain moments may not be forced to defend a liberal position. To-day one of the greatest guarantees of freedom in America is that the men who are in power and who find themselves at times in dictatorial positions lack the nerve and dishonesty of dictators. Some of the men who are against the administration may have both dishonesty and nerve, but they are now obliged to defend a liberal position. Liberty has always saved herself by such tricks.
The liberal equilibrium in America is scarcely embodied in men, although there are a few of them who do help to maintain it. It is better guaranteed by conditions or attitudes deeply rooted in the structure of society. If I were obliged to choose the dominant one of these attitudes, I should choose the volatility of the people. This creates a savage system of using and eliminating men; the method consists in inflating and inflating them until they are blown up. This is cruel, but if freedom were not accompanied by some cruelty, how could it be human?
With its blunders, its dangers, its contradictions, its cruelties, the American social and political adventure offers to a foreigner a most impressive and vivifying experience. There is no greater suffering than that which comes from being uprooted from the history of one’s own country and reduced to accepting ready-to-wear facts and ideas. Some men in Europe have invented this torture for their fellow citizens. Here everybody feels that he is a contemporary and a partner of this society; he is bustled by its problems, drawn into the turmoil of its contradictions, steered by its obscure impulses. Maybe some radical changes will occur, maybe nothing will occur. This society has the greatest capacity for reform, this society has the greatest force of resistance. Some months ago Heywood Broun wrote that General Johnson is a ‘ honey ’; a few weeks later he wrote that General Johnson is a bluff.
Again, one faces uncertainty, not the security of a child who is sustained by brace bands; one faces the unknown, shoulder to shoulder with other fellows who seem to enjoy it. In trying every day to understand how many different and contradictory things are possible, to explain how well balanced is the background of this moving world, the capacity for thinking repressed for years begins to find itself again; one feels that he is a man and that a wide rough country is open to him. Maybe nothing is open but a moral or material wilderness. Tomorrow we may have a runaway inflation. The myth of opportunities is a lie. Who cares? America is something that still exists.