But the foregoing examples of specialized organization and
purposes do not stand alone. They are the most conspicuous and the most
troublesome because of the power wielded by those particular classes,
and because they can claim for their purposes the support of certain
aspects of the American national tradition. Yet the same process has
been taking place in all the other departments of American social and
intellectual life. Technical experts of all kinds--engineers, men of
letters, and artists--have all of them been asserting much more
vigorously their own special interests and purposes. In so asserting
themselves they cannot claim the support of the American national
democratic convention. On the contrary, the proclamation of high
technical standards and of insistent individual purposes is equivalent
to a revolt from the traditions of the Middle Period, which were all in
favor of cheap work and the average worker. But different as is the
situation of these technical experts, the fundamental meaning of their
self-assertion is analogous to that of the millionaire and the "Boss.
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