And the
descendants of the continental Europeans who flock to our shores are
Anglo-Saxonized, also become by environment and education individualists.
The great importance of preserving this individualism, this spirit in our
citizens of self-reliance, this suspicion against too much interference
with personal liberty, must at once be admitted. And any scheme for a
social order that tends to eliminate and destroy it should by Americans
be summarily rejected.
The question of supreme interest to us, therefore, is whether the social
order implied in the British program is mainly in the nature of a
development of, or a break with, the Anglo-Saxon democratic tradition.
The program is derived from an English source. It is based on what is
known as modern social science, which has as its ultimate sanction the
nature of the human mind as revealed by psychology. A consideration of
the principles underlying this proposed social order may prove that it is
essentially--if perhaps paradoxically--individualistic, a logical
evolution of institutions which had their origin in the Magna Charta.
Our Declaration of Independence proclaimed that every citizen had the
right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," which means the
opportunity to achieve the greatest self-development and self-realization.
The theory is that each citizen shall find his place, according to his
gifts and abilities, and be satisfied therewith. We may discover that
this is precisely what social science, in an industrial age, and by
spiritualizing human effort, aims to achieve.
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