problem. They have been promised on American soil comfort, prosperity,
and the opportunity for self-improvement; and the lesson of the existing
crisis is that such a Promise can never be redeemed by an indiscriminate
individual scramble for wealth. The individual competition, even when it
starts under fair conditions and rules, results, not only, as it should,
in the triumph of the strongest, but in the attempt to perpetuate the
victory; and it is this attempt which must be recognized and forestalled
in the interest of the American national purpose. The way to realize a
purpose is, not to leave it to chance, but to keep it loyally in mind,
and adopt means proper to the importance and the difficulty of the task.
No voluntary association of individuals, resourceful and disinterested
though they be, is competent to assume the responsibility. The problem
belongs to the American national democracy, and its solution must be
attempted chiefly by means of official national action.

Neither can its attempted solution be escaped. When they are confronted
by the individual sacrifices which the fulfillment of their national
Promise demands, American political leaders will find many excuses for
ignoring the responsibility thereby implied; but the difficulty of such
an attempted evasion will consist in the reënforcement of the historical
tradition by a logical and a practical necessity. The American problem
is the social problem partly because the social problem is the
democratic problem. American political and social leaders will find that
in a democracy the problem cannot be evaded. The American people have no
irremediable political grievances. No good American denies the
desirability of popular sovereignty and of a government which should
somehow represent the popular will. While our national institutions may
not be a perfect embodiment of these doctrines, a decisive and a
resolute popular majority has the power to alter American institutions
and give them a more immediately representative character. Existing