American IndividualismIn this book, Hoover expounds and vigorously defends what has come to be called American exceptionalism: the set of beliefs and values that still makes America unique. He argues that America can make steady, sure progress if we preserve our individualism, preserve and stimulate the initiative of our people, insist on and maintain the safeguards to equality of opportunity, and honor service as a part of our national character. |
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20th Century 20th Century expansion accumulation and owner administration altruism American individualism associations autocracy cess lies character civilization commerce constant militant check construct leadership contain faults destruction Divine Right divine spark dustry economic domination economic sense represents economic system equality of opportunity excessive individual accumulations F Although socialism failure fair division ferment greater growing growth hindmost ideals increasing industry injustices insists instincts intellectual intelligence justice labor labor unions legislators and intimi liberty maintain mass mind misery mobilization moral motivation mutual nomic organization is mov overwhelmingly largest portion ownership is disappearing phase pioneer political preserve production and distribution progress Proletariat proof radicalism regulation Russia sense of respon sense of service sibility social forces social philosophies social system society spiritual forces standard of living stimula stimulation stockholders striving strongly toward coöperation syndicalist nation tion vast vidual Waring pluralist groups wastes wrong
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Page 25 - and Cabinet, nine have earned their own way in life without economic inheritance, and eight of them started with manual labor. If we examine the impulses that carry us forward, none is so potent for progress as the yearning for individual selfexpression, the desire for creation of something. Perhaps the greatest human happiness flows from personal
Page 8 - Five or six great social philosophies are at struggle in the world for ascendency. There is the Individualism of America. There is the Individualism of the more democratic states of Europe with its careful reservations of castes and classes. There are Communism, Socialism, Syndicalism, Capitalism, and finally there is Autocracy —whether by birth,
Page 14 - Lincoln. We have confirmed its abandonment in terms of legislation, of social and economic justice,—in part because we have learned that it is the hindmost who throws the bricks at our social edifice, in part because we have learned that the foremost are not
Page 16 - We have, in fact, a special social system of our own. We have made it "" ourselves from materials brought in revolt from conditions in Europe. We have lived it; we constantly improve it; we have seldom tried to define it. It abhors autocracy and does not argue with it, but fights it. It is not
Page 30 - soul. I may repeat that the divine spark does not lie in agreements, in organizations, in institutions, in masses or in groups. Spirituality with its faith, its hope, its charity, can be increased by each individual's own effort. And in proportion as each individual increases his own store of spirituality, in that
Page 11 - For myself, let me say at the very outset that my faith in the essential truth, strength, and vitality of the developing creed by which we have hitherto lived in this country of ours has been confirmed and deepened by the searching experiences of seven years of service in the backwash and misery of
Page 42 - hands of the groups who control the state that the individual begins to feel capital as an oppressor. Our American demand for equality of opportunity is a constant militant check upon capital becoming a thing to be feared. Out of fear we sometimes even go too far and stifle the reproductive use of capital by crushing the initiative
Page 11 - with economic degeneration, with social disintegration, with incessant political dislocation, with all of its seething and ferment of individual and class conflict, could but impress me with the primary motivation of social forces, and the necessity for broader thought upon their great issues to humanity. And from it all I emerge ] an individualist—an unashamed
Page 38 - almost wholly an agricultural people our form of organization and administration, both in the governmental and economic fields, could be simple. With the enormous shift in growth to industry and commerce we have erected organisms that each generation has denounced as Frankensteins, yet the succeeding generation proves them to be controllable and useful. The growth of
Page 24 - also insists that the sons of the successful shall not by any mere right of birth or favor continue to occupy their fathers' places of power against the rise of a new generation in .process of coming up from the bottom. } The pioneers of our American individualism had the good sense not to reward Washington and Jefferson and