institutions. The amelioration promised to aliens and to future
Americans was to possess its moral and social aspects. The implication
was, and still is, that by virtue of the more comfortable and less
trammeled lives which Americans were enabled to lead, they would
constitute a better society and would become in general a worthier set
of men. The confidence which American institutions placed in the
American citizen was considered equivalent to a greater faith in the
excellence of human nature. In our favored land political liberty and
economic opportunity were by a process of natural education inevitably
making for individual and social amelioration. In Europe the people did
not have a fair chance. Population increased more quickly than economic
opportunities, and the opportunities which did exist were largely
monopolized by privileged classes. Power was lodged in the hands of a
few men, whose interest depended upon keeping the people in a condition
of economic and political servitude; and in this way a divorce was
created between individual interest and social stability and welfare.
The interests of the privileged rulers demanded the perpetuation of
unjust institutions. The interest of the people demanded a revolutionary
upheaval. In the absence of such a revolution they had no sufficient
inducement to seek their own material and moral improvement. The theory
was proclaimed and accepted as a justification for this system of
popular oppression that men were not to be trusted to take care of
themselves--that they could be kept socially useful only by the severest
measures of moral, religious, and political discipline. The theory of
the American democracy and its practice was proclaimed to be the
antithesis of this European theory and practice. The people were to be
trusted rather than suspected and disciplined. They must be tied to
their country by the strong bond of self-interest. Give them a fair
chance, and the natural goodness of human nature would do the rest.
Individual and public interest will, on the whole, coincide, provided no