He interfered with the rough good-fellowship which
naturally arises among a group of men who submit good-naturedly and
uncritically to current standards." [Footnote: Herbert Croly, "Promise of
American Life," pp. 63, 64.]
Is this what democracy, undefiled of aristocratic conditions and
traditions, has produced? it will be asked. Has pure individualism in a
virgin field wrought of its opportunity only this mediocre, all-round,
good-natured, profane, rough, energetic, ingenious efficiency? Is this
colorless, insipid "social consistency" the best wine that the valley can
offer of its early vintages?
I know those frontier Antaei, who, with their feet on the prairie ground,
faced every emergency with a piece of fence wire. They differed from their
European brothers in being more resourceful, more energetic, and more
hopeful. If it be true that "out of a million well-established Americans
taken indiscriminately from all occupations and conditions," when compared
to a corresponding assortment of Europeans, "a larger proportion of the
former will be leading alert, active, and useful lives," though they may
not be wiser or better men; that there will be a "smaller amount of social
wreckage" and a "larger amount of wholesome and profitable achievement,"
it may be safely said that, if the middle-west frontier Americans had been
under consideration, the proportion of alert achievement would have been
higher and the social wreckage smaller--partly because of the
encouragement of the economic opportunity, and partly because of the
encouragement of a casteless society.
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