Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/850

 REVIEWS

The Promise of ^American Life. By Herbert Croly. New York: Macmillan, 1909. Pp. 468.

Conscious national purpose, not automatic destiny; self- discipline, not merely economic freedom ; devotion to intellectual and technical efficiency for disinterested ends, not merely greed of wealth and power; the specialized few loyal to the mediocre many and trusted by them — these are the underlying, reiterated themes of this important volume. The author, an editor of The Architectural Record, a Cornish (N. H.) colonist, a friend of Mr. Winston Churchill, is not a professed historian, publicist, or social scientist. He does not overvalue endowed research and teaching — the "subsi- dized word" (p. 402) — but he proves himself to be a singularly intelligent student of his country's history and problems. His keen insight, firm grasp, and sane spirit are equally fatal to blatant, un- thinking optimism and to cynical despair.

A partial summary will best reveal the scope and purpose of the book. Until very recently America has fairly well fulfilled its early promises of economic prosperity, political liberty, and a natural equality. But a new situation has rapidly developed, conditions are changing, and the old fatalistic policy of drift, the blind faith in "manifest destiny," must be replaced by a constructive national purpose. Three traditions come down from the past, and blend and conflict in curious ways. Hamilton wrought for the efficient few, and desired a federal power to insure economic stability, to give scope to the enterprising and to undertake national tasks. He saw clearly the social value of strong, capable men, he distrusted the masses and unwittingly he caused the central government to be regarded as the ally of property interests. Jefferson, confusing individualism with liberty and local control with democracy, started a persistent traditional antagonism to the federal power, while Jack- son exalted the unspecialized, average citizen of the frontier into the type of true American to whom the highly trained man seems at once a personal affront and a public menace. The rapid indus- trial changes have forced differentiation. The business specialist, the political specialist, the labor unionist are at once products and

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