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CHAPTER I
AMERICAN IDEALS
AND THE AMERICAN CONSCIENCE
I. Unity of Ideals and Diversity of Culture
It IS a commonplace to point out the heterogeneity of the American
nation and the swift succession of all sorts of changes in all its component
parts and, as it often seems, in every conceivable direction. America is
truly a shock to the stranger. The bewildering impression it gives of dis-
similarity throughout and of chaotic unrest is indicated by the fact that
few outside observers—and, indeed, few native Americans—have been able
to avoid the intellectual escape of speaking about America as “paradoxical.”
Still there is evidently a strong unity in this nation and a basic homo-
geneity and stability in its valuations. Americans of all national origins,
classes, regions, creeds, and colors, have something in common: a social
ethosy a political creed. It is difficult to avoid the judgment that this
“American Creed” is the cement in the structure of this great and disparate
nation.
When the American Creed is once detected, the cacophony becomes a
melody. The further observation then becomes apparent: that America,
compared to every other country in Western civilization, large or small,
has the most exfUcitly expressed system of general ideals in reference to
human interrelations. This body of ideals is more widely understood and
appreciated than similar ideals are anywhere else. The American Creed is
not merely—as in some other countries—^the implicit background of the
nation’s political and judicial order as it functions. To be sure, the political
creed of America is not very satisfactorily effectuated in actual social life.
But as principles which ought to rule, the Creed has been made conscious
to everyone in American society.
Sometimes one even gets the impression that there is a relation between
the intense apprehension of high and uncompromising ideals and the
spotty reality. One feels that it is, perhaps, the difficulty of giving reality
to the ethos in this young and still somewhat unorganized nation—that it
is the prevalence of “wrongs” in America, “wrongs” judged by the high
standards of the national Creed—which helps make the ideals stand out so
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