Some are now beginning to surmise that a complete restoration is
impossible; and as a result of their socializing experience, are even
wondering whether it is desirable. These are beginning to perceive that
the national and international organizations in the course of
construction to meet the demands of the world conflict must form the
model for a future social structure; that the unprecedented pressure
caused by the cataclysm is compelling a recrystallization of society in
which there must be fewer misfits, in which many more individuals than
formerly shall find public or semi-public tasks in accordance with their
gifts and abilities.
It may be argued that war compels socialization, that after the war the
world will perforce return to materialistic individualism. But this
calamity, terrible above all others, has warned us of the imperative need
of an order that shall be socializing, if we are not to witness the
destruction of our civilization itself. Confidence that such an order,
thanks to the advancement of science, is now within our grasp should not
be difficult for Americans, once they have rightly conceived it. We, who
have always pinned our faith to ideas, who entered the conflict for an
Idea, must be the last to shirk the task, however Herculean, of world
reconstruction along the lines of our own professed faith. We cannot be
renegades to Democracy.
Above all things, then, it is essential for us as a people not to abandon
our faith in man, our belief that not only the exceptional individual but
the majority of mankind can be socialized.
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