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Show American Individualism A Timely Message to the American People By HERBERT HOOVER Secretary of Commerce. WE HAVE witnessed in this last eight years the spread of revolution revolu-tion over one-third of the world. The causes of these explosions lie at far greater depths than the failure of governments in war. The war itself in it3 last stages was a conflict of social philosophies but beyond this the causes of social explosion lay in the great inequalities and injustices of centuries flogged beyond endurance by the conflict and freed from restraint by the destruction of war. The urgent forces whieh drive human society have been plunged into a terriblo furnace. Great theories spun by dreamers to-i remedy the pressing human Ills have come to the front of men's minds. Great formulas came Into life that promised to dissolve all trouble. Great masses of people have flocked to their banners tu hopes born of misery and suffering. Nor has the great social ferment been confined to those nations that have burned with revolutions. Now, as the storm of war, of revolution revo-lution and of emotion subsides there Is left even with us of the United States much unrest, much discontent with the surer forces of human ad-runcement. ad-runcement. To all of us, out of this crucible of actual, poignant. Individual experience has come a deal of new understanding, and It Is for all of us to ponder these new currents If we are to shape our future with Intelligence. Even those parts of the world that suffered less from the war have been partly Infected by these Ideas. Beyond this, however, many have had high hopes of civilization suddenly purified and ennobled by the sacrifices and services of the war ; they- had thought the fine unity of purpose gained In war would be carried into great unity of action In remedy of the faults of civilisation civili-sation In peace. But from concentration concentra-tion of every spiritual and materlul energy upon the single purpose of war the scene changed to the Immense complexity com-plexity and the many purposes of peace. Thus there loom up certain definite underlying forces In our national life that need to be stripped of the Imaginary Imagi-nary the transitory and a definition er thought upon their great Issues Is-sues to humanity. And from It U I emerge an Individualist an unashamed Individualist, liut let me gay also thut 1 am an American Individualist. For America has been steadily developing develop-ing the Ideals that constitute progressive progres-sive Individualism. No doubt, Individualism run riot, with no tempering principle, would provide pro-vide a long category of Inequalities, of tyrannies, dominations, and injustices. America, how ever, has tempered the whole conception of Individualism by the injection of a definite principle, and from this principle It follows that attempts at domination, whether In government or In the processes of Industry In-dustry und commerce, are under an Insistent curb. If we would have tin values of Individualism, their stimulation stimula-tion to Initiative, to the development of hand and Intellect, to the high development de-velopment of thought and spirituality, they must be tempered with that firm and fixed ideal of American Individualism Individu-alism an equality of opportunity. If we would have these values we must soften Its hardness and stimulate progress prog-ress through that sense of service that lies In our people. Therefore, It Is not the Individualism of other countries for which I would speak, but the Individualism of America. Amer-ica. Our Individualism differs from ail others because it embraces these great Ideals', that while we build our Bocloty upon the attainment of the Individual, In-dividual, we shall safeguard to every Individual an equality of opportunity should b given to th actual, permanent perma-nent and persistent motivation of our civilization. In contemplation of these questions we must go far deeper than tha superflcJaU of our political and economic structure, for these are but the products of our social philosophy the machinery of our social system. Nor Is It ever amiss to review the political, economic, and spiritual principles princi-ples through which our country has steadily grown In usefulness and greatness, great-ness, not only to preserve them from being fouled by false notions, but more importantly that we may guide ourselves our-selves In the rood of progress. Five or six great social philosophies are at struggle In the world for ascendency. as-cendency. There Is the Individualism of America. There Is the Individualism Individual-ism of the more democratic states of Europe with Its careful reservations of castes and classes. There are Communism, Com-munism, Socialism. Syndicalism, Capitalism, Cap-italism, and finally there la Autocracy whether by birth, by possessions, militarism, or divine right of kings. Even the Divine Bight still lingers on although our lifetime has seen fully two-thirds of the earth's population, including in-cluding Germany, Austria, Russia, and China, arrive at a state of angry disgust dis-gust with this type of social motive power and throw It on the scrap heap. All these thoughts are In ferment today In every country In the world. They fluctuate In ascendency with times and places. They compromise with each other in daily reaction on governments and peoples. Some of these Ideas are perhaps more adapted to oue race than another. Some are false, some are true. The partisans of some of these other brands of social schemes challenge us to comparison ; and some of their partisans par-tisans even among our own people are increasing In their agitation that we adopt one or another or parts of their devices In place of our tried Individual-Ism. Individual-Ism. Tuey Insist that our social foundations foun-dations are exhausted, that like fuedal-Isin fuedal-Isin and autocracy America's plan has served Its puriwse that It must be abandoned. There are those who have been left In sober doubt of our Institutions or are confounded by bewildering catchwords catch-words of vivid phrases. For In this nelter of discussions there Is much ot-tempt ot-tempt to glorify or defame social und economic forces with phrases. Nor Indeed In-deed should we disregard the potency of ome of these phrases In their slr to action The dlctatoaahp of the Proletariat." "Capitalistic nations," "Germany over all," and a score of others. oth-ers. We need only to review those that have jumped to horseback during the lust ten years In order that we may be proirly awed by the great social und political havoc that can be worlred where the bestial Instincts of hate, murder, and destruction are clothe.! by the demagogues in the line terms of pollllcol Idealism. For mvself. let me say at the very outset that my faith In the essen'ial truth, trength. and vitality of the developing de-veloping creed by which we have hitherto hith-erto lived in this country of oim-s 1ms ,een confirmed stid deepened ! v th" M,.,irchlfig exoerlen'vs of seven : r of aervlre In ll'.e hu-kwxh and n. " ,.f war. Seven ye-.rs of rot.ten fti!h ,.,,n,-.n!e de-eneflll.on. with ..l .I'Siiiteirmion. Hh 1'-'S!"" ,,,,.,,1 ,l.vl,,r:lt!nn. with Ml of Its ,', n.l f.-n.-nt of lcil'.nhnl nod copiivt, cou'd but li.ipp-;- no ,-. iiiry iimI :it !n of "'"' .,, t:;1- uive.-s:ty for broad- to take that position In the community commun-ity to which his intelligence, character, ability, and ambition entitle hlra ; that we keep the social solution free from frozen strata of classes ; that we shall stimulate effort of each Individual to achievement; that through an enlarging enlarg-ing sense of responsibility and understanding under-standing we shall assist him to this attainment; while he In turn must stand up to the emery wheel of competition. com-petition. Individualism cannot be maintained as the foundation of a society if it looks to only legalistic justice based upon contracts, property, and political politi-cal equality. Such legalistic safeguards safe-guards are themselves not enough. In our Individualism we have long since abandoned the lolssez fulre of the Eighteenth century the notion that It Is "every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost" We abandoned aban-doned that when we adopted the Ideal of equality of opportunity the fair chance of Abraham Lincoln. We have confirmed Its abandonment In terms of legislation, of social and economic justice jus-tice In part because we have learned that It Is the hindmost who throws the bricks at onr social edifice, In part because we have learned that the foremost fore-most are not always the best nor the hindmost the worst and In part because be-cause we have learned that social Injustice In-justice Is the destruction of Justice Itself. We have learned that the Impulse Im-pulse to production can only be maintained main-tained at a high pitch if there 1 fair division of the product, We have also learned that fair division can only be obtained by certain restrictions restric-tions on the strong and the dominant. We hnve Indeed gone even further In the Twentieth century with the em-brncement em-brncement of the necessity of a greater and broader sense of service and responsibility re-sponsibility to others as a part of Individualism. In-dividualism. Whatever may be the case wdth regard re-gard to Old World Individualism (and we have given more back to Europe than we received from her) the truth that Is important for us to grasp today to-day Is that there Is a world of difference differ-ence between the principles and spirit of Old World Individualism and that which we have developed In our own country. We have. In fact, a social social system of our own. We have mndo It ourselves from materials brought In revolt from conditions In Europe. Wo have lived It; we constantly Improve It; we have seldom tried to define It. It abhors autocracy and does not argun with It, but fights it. It Is not capital-Ism, capital-Ism, or socialism, or syndicalism, nor a cross breed of them. Mke most Amerlenns, I refuse to be dsmnefl by anybody's word-classltlcntlon of It, sueh as "capitalism," "plutocracy," "proletariat" "prole-tariat" or "mlddle-clnss," or any other, or to any kind of compartment that Is bused on the assumption of some group dominating somebody eise. The social for'-e In whb'h I am Interested Inter-ested Is fnr higher and far more pri-clous pri-clous a thing than all these. It springs from something Infinitely more cn-durlnT; cn-durlnT; It splines from the one source of htiinati progressthat each Individual Individ-ual el-all be given the chance and vtjntilrit ion for development of the) het w'.tii whhii he has l.eeri endowed j In heart and tnii.d; It U the sole source j n' progrev; it Is Amerb-jin Indivblii j liliSMl. (To i'K roNTiNC::r .own"! 1. l-y !'outi.V!.i l'ae ft I,. T'llli-hcl )y arr-mK'-rif-nt Wlt-h Wi-nO-m Newspaper Uiion.) |