I have used
the word "restoration" to describe this binding and healing process; but
the consistency which would result from the loyal realization of a
comprehensive coherent democratic social ideal would differ radically
from the earlier American homogeneity of feeling. The solidarity which
it would impart to American society would have its basis in feeling and
its results in good fellowship; but it must always remain a promise and
constructive ideal rather than a finished performance. The social
problem must, as long as societies continue to endure, be solved afresh
by almost every generation; and the one chance of progress depends both
upon an invincible loyalty to a constructive social ideal and upon a
current understanding by the new generation of the actual experience of
its predecessors.
CHAPTER VI
I
REFORM AND THE REFORMERS
Sensible and patriotic Americans have not, of course, tamely and ignobly
submitted to the obvious evils of their political and economic
condition. There was, indeed, a season when the average good American
refused to take these evils seriously.
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