By the
social problem is usually meant the problem of poverty; but grave
inequalities of wealth are merely the most dangerous and distressing
expression of fundamental differences among the members of a society of
interest and of intellectual and moral standards. In its deepest aspect,
consequently, the social problem is the problem of preventing such
divisions from dissolving the society into which they enter--of keeping
such a highly differentiated society fundamentally sound and whole.
In this country the solution of the social problem demands the
substitution of a conscious social ideal for the earlier instinctive
homogeneity of the American nation. That homogeneity has disappeared
never to return. We should not want it to return, because it was
dependent upon too many sacrifices of individual purpose and
achievement. But a democracy cannot dispense with the solidarity which
it imparted to American life, and in one way or another such solidarity
must be restored. There is only one way in which it can be restored, and
that is by means of a democratic social ideal, which shall give
consistency to American social life, without entailing any essential
sacrifice of desirable individual and class distinctions.
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