binds the American to his countrymen, but rather the future which
together they are building." This vision of a better future is not,
perhaps, as unclouded for the present generation of Americans as it was
for certain former generations; but in spite of a more friendly
acquaintance with all sorts of obstacles and pitfalls, our country is
still figured in the imagination of its citizens as the Land of Promise.
They still believe that somehow and sometime something better will
happen to good Americans than has happened to men in any other country;
and this belief, vague, innocent, and uninformed though it be, is the
expression of an essential constituent in our national ideal. The past
should mean less to a European than it does to an American, and the
future should mean more. To be sure, American life cannot with impunity
be wrenched violently from its moorings any more than the life of a
European country can; but our American past, compared to that of any
European country, has a character all its own. Its peculiarity consists,
not merely in its brevity, but in the fact that from the beginning it
has been informed by an idea. From the beginning Americans have been
anticipating and projecting a better future. From the beginning the Land
of Democracy has been figured as the Land of Promise. Thus the
American's loyalty to the national tradition rather affirms than denies
the imaginative projection of a better future. An America which was not
the Land of Promise, which was not informed by a prophetic outlook and a
more or less constructive ideal, would not be the America bequeathed to
us by our forefathers. In cherishing the Promise of a better national
future the American is fulfilling rather than imperiling the substance
of the national tradition.

When, however, Americans talk of their country as the Land of Promise, a
question may well be raised as to precisely what they mean. They mean,
of course, in general, that the future will have something better in